‘No, by the gods! And I still sometimes laugh to think how poor I was. How could I give what I had not myself?’
‘Which, then, is easier to obtain, money or wisdom?’
‘I should say it is easier to get money, for we often see men who have acquired heaps of money who do not seem able to get much wisdom.’
‘And yet you hope to teach these people wisdom, which you say you have not got, and which is harder to obtain than riches.’
‘Ah, Sokrates, it is still just as of old. Somehow when I talk with you I seem to be ignorant of everything; though when I am with others I fancy I am cleverer than most of them.’
‘And do you not know why?’
‘Not I, unless it be that the oracle said truly that Sokrates, the son of Sophroniskos, was the wisest of the Greeks.’
‘And you know not why it said so?’
‘I have heard you say in the old days, but now I quite forget.’
‘Well, I will tell thee. Perhaps it meant that I, in truth, was the most foolish of mankind.’