The Apology

"The Apology of Plato is not the report of what Socrates said, but an elaborate composition, quite as much so in fact as one of the Dialogues."

"On the whole we arrive at the conclusion that the “Apology” is true to the character of Socrates, but we cannot show that any single sentence in it was actually spoken by him."

"I know that they almost made me forget who I was—so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth."

"unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth; for if such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent."

"I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous, too, in their own way."

"I must simply fight with shadows in my own defence, and argue when there is no one who answers."

"if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand."

"he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know."

"even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets;—because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom;"

"God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing."

"Meletus is a doer of evil, in that he pretends to be in earnest when he is only in jest, and is so eager to bring men to trial from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he really never had the smallest interest."

"Then every Athenian improves and elevates them; all with the exception of myself; and I alone am their corrupter? Is that what you affirm? That is what I stoutly affirm."