ALCIBIADES: How do you mean? Can ignorance possibly be better than
knowledge for any person in any conceivable case?

SOCRATES: So I believe:--you do not think so?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And yet surely I may not suppose that you would ever wish to act
towards your mother as they say that Orestes and Alcmeon and others have
done towards their parent.

ALCIBIADES: Good words, Socrates, prithee.

SOCRATES: You ought not to bid him use auspicious words, who says that you
would not be willing to commit so horrible a deed, but rather him who
affirms the contrary, if the act appear to you unfit even to be mentioned.
Or do you think that Orestes, had he been in his senses and knew what was
best for him to do, would ever have dared to venture on such a crime?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Nor would any one else, I fancy?

ALCIBIADES: No.

SOCRATES: That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the
best and does not know what is best?

ALCIBIADES: So I think, at least.