YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.

STRANGER: Let us call to mind the bearing of all this.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?

STRANGER: I wanted to get rid of any impression of tediousness which we

may have experienced in the discussion about weaving, and the reversal

of the universe, and in the discussion concerning the Sophist and the

being of not-being. I know that they were felt to be too long, and I

reproached myself with this, fearing that they might be not only tedious

but irrelevant; and all that I have now said is only designed to prevent

the recurrence of any such disagreeables for the future.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good. Will you proceed?

STRANGER: Then I would like to observe that you and I, remembering

what has been said, should praise or blame the length or shortness of

discussions, not by comparing them with one another, but with what is

fitting, having regard to the part of measurement, which, as we said,

was to be borne in mind.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.

STRANGER: And yet, not everything is to be judged even with a view to

what is fitting; for we should only want such a length as is suited to

Statesman