SOCRATES: Can we call those teachers who do not acknowledge the possibility of their own vocation?
MENO: I think not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what do you think of these Sophists, who are the only professors? Do they seem to you to be teachers of virtue?
MENO: I often wonder, Socrates, that Gorgias is never heard promising to teach virtue: and when he hears others promising he only laughs at them; but he thinks that men should be taught to speak.
SOCRATES: Then do you not think that the Sophists are teachers?
MENO: I cannot tell you, Socrates; like the rest of the world, I am in doubt, and sometimes I think that they are teachers and sometimes not.
SOCRATES: And are you aware that not you only and other politicians have doubts whether virtue can be taught or not, but that Theognis the poet says the very same thing?
MENO: Where does he say so?
SOCRATES: In these elegiac verses (Theog.):
'Eat and drink and sit with the mighty, and make yourself agreeable to them; for from the good you will learn what is good, but if you mix with the bad you will lose the intelligence which you already have.'