> > Socrates said that the only way to be happy was to balance your physical desires(pleasure) and your reason.
>
> Pain-in-the-ass philosophy major nitpick: Socrates did not necessarily say that. Socrates, the father of modern philosophy, the titan among the ancient thinkers, never wrote a thing. He is silent to history. What you read was words someone put into Socrates' mouth. Of the two major first-generation Socratics, if you heard it from Xenophon, there's a reasonable chance of its being at least something Socrates said something similar to. But if it came from Plato, it was most likely Plato's ideology in Socrates' mouth. Socrates, while definitely a real man, became a character of Plato's through many years of work. Not that the statement, or, indeed, Plato's body of work, becomes any less valid as a result, mind; it's simply not authentic Socrates.

I agree. But, Plato says Socrates said it, and I like the ideas, and also Socrates better than Plato(dying before giving up philosophy! So romantic! *swoon*), so I give Socrates credit for it. I have never read Xenophon. What is that about?

Melanie