The Republic

by Plato · c. 375 BCE

Benjamin Jowett's translation, 1871. 10 parts, about 118,328 words, 9 hours of reading. Source edition.

Passages the guide marks

I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.
Book 1, 338c · Read it in Book I
Glaucon imagines a ring that makes its wearer invisible and asks whether any man, just or unjust, would keep his hands off what he wanted.
Book 2, 359d to 360d · Read it in Book II
Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, cities will never have rest from their evils.
Book 5, 473d · Read it in Book V
Prisoners are chained facing the wall of a cave, taking the shadows cast by a fire behind them for the whole of reality, and one of them is dragged out into the light.
Book 7, 514a to 517a · Read it in Book VII
The soul of a man, Socrates says, is like a many-headed beast, a lion and a human being grown together, and the just man is the one in whom the human being rules.
Book 9, 588c to 589b · Read it in Book IX

About this text

Public domain in the United States; the Project Gutenberg edition is free of restrictions under the Project Gutenberg License. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. It is not the edition the programs assign; the guide names that one, and the buy links there point at it.

Contents