Apologia 28 b- 30 c 

Someone will say:

And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a  course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely  end?

To him I may fairly answer:

There you are mistaken: a  man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the  chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether  in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the  part of a good man or of a bad. Whereas, according to your  view, the heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much,  and the son of Thetis above all, who altogether despised  danger in comparison with disgrace; and when his goddess  mother said to him, in his eagerness to slay Hector, that if  he avenged his companion Patroclus, and slew Hector, he  would die himself –

“Fate,” as she said, “waits upon you  next after Hector”; he, hearing this, utterly despised danger  and death, and instead of fearing them, feared rather to live    in dishonor, and not to avenge his friend.

“Let me die next,”  he replies, “and be avenged of my enemy, rather than abide  here by the beaked ships, a scorn and a burden of the earth.” 

Had Achilles any thought of death and danger? For wherever  a man’s place is, whether the place which he has chosen or  that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he  ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think  of death or of anything, but of disgrace. And this, O men of  Athens, is a true saying.  Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens,  if I who, when I was ordered by the generals whom you  chose to command me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and  Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man,  facing death; if, I say, now, when, as I conceive and imagine,  God orders me to fulfil the philosopher’s mission of  searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my  post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would  indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court  for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the  oracle because I was afraid of death: then I should be fancying  that I was wise when I was not wise.

For this fear of  death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom,  being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since  no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend  to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest  good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a  disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the point in which,  as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I  might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men, - that  whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose  that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience  to a better, whether god or man, is evil and dishonorable,  and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather  than a certain evil.

And therefore if you let me go now, and  reject the counsels of Anytus, who said that if I were not  put to death I ought not to have been prosecuted, and that  if I escape now, your sons will all be utterly ruined by listening  to my words - if you say to me, Socrates, this time we  will not mind Anytus, and will let you off, but upon one  condition, that are to inquire and speculate in this way any  more, and that if you are caught doing this again you shall  die; - if this was the condition on which you let me go, I  should reply: Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I  shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and  strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching  of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying:

O my friend, why do you  who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise polis of  Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount  of wealth (xrh/mata) and honor (ti/mh) and reputation (kle/oj), and so little about wisdom  and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul,  which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed  of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes,  but I do care; I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate  and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think  that he has no virtue (a)reth/), but only says that he has, I reproach  him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.  And this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and  old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch  as they are my brethren. For this is the command of  god, as I would have you know; and I believe that to this  day no greater good has ever happened in the polis than my  service to the god. For I do nothing but go about persuading  you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your  persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care  about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that  a)reth/ is not given by money, but that from a)reth/ come  money and every other good of man, public as well as private.  This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which  corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed.

But if  anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an  untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as  Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or  not; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my  ways, not even if I have to die many times.