good, and if modesty is as much an evil as a good?

All that, Socrates, appears to me to be true; but I should like to know
what you think about another definition of temperance, which I just now
remember to have heard from some one, who said, 'That temperance is doing
our own business.' Was he right who affirmed that?

You monster! I said; this is what Critias, or some philosopher has told
you.

Some one else, then, said Critias; for certainly I have not.

But what matter, said Charmides, from whom I heard this?

No matter at all, I replied; for the point is not who said the words, but
whether they are true or not.

There you are in the right, Socrates, he replied.

To be sure, I said; yet I doubt whether we shall ever be able to discover
their truth or falsehood; for they are a kind of riddle.

What makes you think so? he said.

Because, I said, he who uttered them seems to me to have meant one thing,
and said another. Is the scribe, for example, to be regarded as doing
nothing when he reads or writes?

I should rather think that he was doing something.