"Plato’s Republic, whatever its contributions to political theory or its suggestiveness to the practical politician or social reformer, is not a treatise on political science or a text-book of civics. It is the City of God in which Plato’s soul sought refuge from the abasement of Athenian politics which he felt himself impotent to reform. The philosopher, he says with unmistakable reference to Socrates (Apology 31 ©) and apology for himself, knows that no politician is honest nor is there any champion of justice at whose side he may fight and be saved. He resembles a man fallen among wild beasts. He is unwilling to share and impotent singly to oppose their rapine. He is like one who in a driving storm of dust and sleet stands aside under shelter of a wall and seeing others filled full with all iniquity, must be content to live his own life, keep his soul unspotted from the world, and depart at last with peace and good will and gracious hopes. This is something. But how much more could he accomplish for himself and others, Plato wistfully adds, in a society in harmony with his true nature."
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Paul Shorey, Introduction, Plato The Republic, translated by Paul Shorey, University of Chicago (1930)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Republic_(Plato)
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Republic (Plato)
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