Quotation
Last reviewed:
“One ought never to return a wrong, or do evil to any person, no matter what one has suffered.”
Socrates · Socratic · Ancient · 399 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is an absolute bar: returning a wrong is still wrong, even after you have been wronged, and Socrates will not escape on that basis. A competing reading treats the ban as a step inside one argument with Crito, not as a complete theory of punishment or war. The line is Crito 49c–d, where Socrates gets his old friend to agree before applying the point to the unlawful escape. It is among the strongest claims in the early dialogues.
Did Socrates really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Plato's report of Socrates in the Crito, the dialogue set in the prison. The English is close to G. M. A. Grube's translation of 49c.
Where it comes from
Plato, Crito 49c
Approximate date: 399 BCE.
How to use it
Someone cuts you up on a roundabout and the next minute offers a chance to repay it in kind. The injury was real. On this agreement, the repayment is a second wrong, not a restoration, and the same structure shows up in a work grievance answered by a lie about the other person, and refusing the return is not the same as refusing every legal remedy.
A mindset reading
The habit is to stop calling retaliation justice just because it matches the first harm. Ask whether the reply would still be wrong if a stranger did it with no backstory. If it would, the backstory has not cleaned it, on Socrates's rule.
Understand the philosophy
Socrates is answering Crito's plea that he escape the unjust verdict. To return a wrong, antadikein, is to do injustice back. Socrates says doing injustice is never right, a premise Crito is ashamed to deny. The argument then says escaping would injure the laws, and readers can accept the ban on revenge and still dispute that last step.
- ethics
- justice
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is an absolute bar: returning a wrong is still wrong, even after you have been wronged, and Socrates will not escape on that basis. A competing reading treats the ban as a step inside one argument with Crito, not as a complete theory of punishment or war. The line is Crito 49c–d, where Socrates gets his old friend to agree before applying the point to the unlawful escape. It is among the strongest claims in the early dialogues.
Did Socrates really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Plato's report of Socrates in the Crito, the dialogue set in the prison. The English is close to G. M. A. Grube's translation of 49c.
Which work is it in?
Plato, Crito 49c Approximate date: 399 BCE.