not taken any pains to learn, is downright insanity.

ALCIBIADES: But, Socrates, I think that the Athenians and the rest of the
Hellenes do not often advise as to the more just or unjust; for they see no
difficulty in them, and therefore they leave them, and consider which
course of action will be most expedient; for there is a difference between
justice and expediency. Many persons have done great wrong and profited by
their injustice; others have done rightly and come to no good.

SOCRATES: Well, but granting that the just and the expedient are ever so
much opposed, you surely do not imagine that you know what is expedient for
mankind, or why a thing is expedient?

ALCIBIADES: Why not, Socrates?--But I am not going to be asked again from
whom I learned, or when I made the discovery.

SOCRATES: What a way you have! When you make a mistake which might be
refuted by a previous argument, you insist on having a new and different
refutation; the old argument is a worn-our garment which you will no longer
put on, but some one must produce another which is clean and new. Now I
shall disregard this move of yours, and shall ask over again,--Where did
you learn and how do you know the nature of the expedient, and who is your
teacher? All this I comprehend in a single question, and now you will
manifestly be in the old difficulty, and will not be able to show that you
know the expedient, either because you learned or because you discovered it
yourself. But, as I perceive that you are dainty, and dislike the taste of
a stale argument, I will enquire no further into your knowledge of what is
expedient or what is not expedient for the Athenian people, and simply
request you to say why you do not explain whether justice and expediency
are the same or different? And if you like you may examine me as I have