Plato, Gorgias, section 494b

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[494b] But a pleasant life consists rather in the largest possible amount of inflow.

Socrates
Well then, if the inflow be large, must not that which runs away be of large amount also, and must not the holes for such outflow be of great size?

Callicles
Certainly.

Socrates
Then it is a plover's life¹ you are describing this time, not that of a corpse or a stone. Now tell me, is the life you mean something like feeling hunger and eating when hungry?

Callicles
Yes, it is.

1 Referring to this birdÕs habit of drinking water and then ejecting it.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.

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