Plato, Laws

Athenian
Then surely the lawgiver of Zeus and he of Apollo did not enact by law a lame kind of courage, able only to defend itself on the left and unable to resist attractions and allurements on the right, but rather one able to resist on both sides?

Clinias
On both sides, as I would maintain.

Athenian
Let us, then, mention once more the State institutions in both your countries which give men a taste of pleasures instead of shunning them,—just as they did not shun pains but plunged their citizens into the midst of them and so compelled them, [634b] or induced them by rewards, to master them. Where, pray, in your laws is the same policy adopted in regard to pleasures? Let us declare what regulation of yours there is which causes the same men to be courageous toward pains and pleasures alike, conquering where they ought to conquer and in no wise worsted by their nearest and most dangerous enemies.

Megillus
Although, Stranger, I was able to mention a number of laws that dealt with mastery over pains, in the case of pleasures I may not find it equally easy to produce important and conspicuous examples; [634c] but I might perhaps furnish some minor instances.

Clinias
Neither could I in like manner give myself clear examples from the Cretan laws.

Athenian
And no wonder, my most excellent friends. If then, in his desire to discover what is true and superlatively good, any one of us should find fault with any domestic law of his neighbors, let us take one another's remarks in good part and without resentment. [634d]

Clinias
You are right, Stranger: that is what we must do.

Athenian
Yes, for resentment would ill become men of our years.

Clinias
Ill indeed.

Athenian
Whether men are right or wrong in their censures of the Laconian polity and the Cretan—that is another story; anyhow, what is actually said by most men I, probably, am in a better position to state than either of you. For in your case (your laws being wisely framed) one of the best of your laws will be that which enjoins that none of the youth shall inquire which laws are wrong [634e] and which right, but all shall declare in unison, with one mouth and one voice, that all are rightly established by divine enactment, and shall turn a deaf ear to anyone who says otherwise; and further, that if any old man has any stricture to pass on any of your laws, he must not utter such views in the presence of any young man, but before a magistrate or one of his own age.

Clinias
A very sound observation, Stranger; and just like a diviner,