Apology; Crito and Phaedo of Socrates

“I wish, indeed, it might be so, if it were at all better both for you and me, and that in making my defense I could effect something more advantageous still: I think, however, that it will be difficult, and I am not entirely ignorant what the difficulty is.”

“Be well assured, then, if you put me to death, being such a man as I say I am, you will not injure me more than yourselves. For neither will Melitus nor Anytus harm me; nor have they the power; for I do not think that it is possible for a better man to be injured by a worse.”

“And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it were a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death would be a wonderful gain.”

“You, therefore, O my judges! ought to entertain good hopes with respect to death, and to meditate on this one truth, that to a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor when dead, nor are his concerns neglected by the gods.”