Book · The Republic
Page 174 of 1391
Author: Plato
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Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in
finding in another class-that of soldiers. Courage may be defined
as a sort of salvation-the never-failing salvation of the
opinions which law and education have prescribed concerning
dangers. You know the way in which dyers first prepare the white
ground and then lay on the dye of purple or of any other colour.
Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no soap or lye will
ever wash them out. Now the ground is education, and the laws are
the colours; and if the ground is properly laid, neither the soap
of pleasure nor the lye of pain or fear will ever wash them out.
This power which preserves right opinion about danger I would ask
you to call 'courage,' adding the epithet 'political' or
'civilized' in order to distinguish it from mere animal courage
and from a higher courage which may hereafter be discussed.
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