# Complete Works of Plato  Author:: Plato and Original Thinkers Institute  ## AI-Generated Summary None ## Highlights > In addition to this, young men, who have much leisure and belong to the wealthiest families, following me of their own accord, take great delight in hearing men put to the test, and often imitate me, and themselves attempt to put others to the test; and then, I think, they find a great abundance of men who fancy they know something, although they know little or nothing. Hence those who are put to the test by them are angry with me, and not with them, and say that "there is one Socrates, a most pestilent fellow, who corrupts the youth." And when any one asks them by doing or teaching what, they have nothing to say, for they do not know; but, that they may not seem to be at a loss, they say such things as are ready at hand against all philosophers; "that he searches into things in heaven and things under the earth, that he does not believe there are gods, and that he makes the worse appear the better reason." For they would not, I think, be willing to tell the truth that they have been detected in pretending to possess knowledge, whereas they know nothing. ([Location 365](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=365)) > But it is now time to depart—for me to die, for you to live. But which of us is going to a better state is unknown to every one but God. ([Location 716](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=716)) > In other words, says Socrates, piety is 'a science of asking and giving'—asking what we want and giving what they want; in short, a mode of doing business between gods and men. But although they are the givers of all good, how can we give them any good in return? 'Nay, but we give them honour.' ([Location 52532](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=52532)) > There seem to be altogether three aims or interests in this little Dialogue: (1) the dialectical development of the idea of piety; (2) the antithesis of true and false religion, which is carried to a certain extent only; (3) the defence of Socrates. ([Location 52578](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=52578)) ### EUTHYPHRO > He says he knows how the youth are corrupted and who are their corruptors. I fancy that he must be a wise man, and seeing that I am the reverse of a wise man, he has found me out, and is going to accuse me of corrupting his young friends. ([Location 52602](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=52602)) > He brings a wonderful accusation against me, which at first hearing excites surprise: he says that I am a poet or maker of gods, and that I invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones; this is the ground of his indictment. ([Location 52609](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=52609)) > SOCRATES: And what is piety, and what is impiety? EUTHYPHRO: Piety is doing as I am doing; that is to say, prosecuting any one who is guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime—whether he be your father or mother, or whoever he may be—that makes no difference; and not to prosecute them is impiety. ([Location 52665](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=52665)) > Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them. ([Location 52693](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=52693)) > And the same holds as in the previous instances; the state of being loved follows the act of being loved, and not the act the state. ([Location 52787](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C5S4W2S7&location=52787))