Plato (427-347 BC)

Letters

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Letter 10

Plato to Aristodorus wishes well-doing.

I hear that you now are and always have been one of Dion’s most intimate companions, since of all who pursue philosophy you exhibit the most philosophic disposition; for steadfastness, trustiness, and sincerity—these I affirm to be the genuine philosophy, but as to all other forms of science and cleverness which tend in other directions, I shall, I believe, be giving them their right names if I dub them “parlor-tricks.” So farewell, and continue in the same disposition in which you are continuing now.

Letter 9

Letter 11