Sayings of Socrates 26

I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to everyone of you, there I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the State before he looks to the interests of the State; and that this should be the order that he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such a one? Doubtless some good thing. . . .

—Plato, Apology 36c–d