Q0003

Socrates

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

It is worse to do injustice than to suffer it.
Thinker Socrates
School Socratic School
Source Plato, Gorgias 469b–c
Theme Justice
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Plato, Gorgias 469b–c, within the tradition of Socratic School. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of justice, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Socrates's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Socrates. (n.d.). It is worse to do injustice than to suffer it. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0003

MLA: Socrates. “It is worse to do injustice than to….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0003.

Chicago: Socrates. “It is worse to do injustice than to….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0003.

Same thinker

More from Socrates

  1. The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.
  2. What I do not know, I do not claim to know.
  3. No one errs willingly.
  4. Virtue does not come from money, but from virtue come money and all other good things for human beings.
  5. One must never do injustice in any way.

All quotations by Socrates

Same theme

More on justice

  1. Justice is doing one's own work and not meddling in others'.
  2. Those who have the Way receive much help; those who lose the Way receive little help.
  3. I say that the noble and good man and woman are happy, and the unjust and wicked are miserable.
  4. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it…Reason…teaches all mankind…that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
  5. One must never do injustice in any way.

Browse the justice theme