""Protagoras begins his speechmaking with the proclamation that a good sophist can make his students into good citizens.
Socrates says this is fine and good, but that he personally thinks that virtue cannot be taught.
He adds that technical thinking can be imparted to students by teachers, but that wisdom cannot be.
By way of example, Socrates says that Pericles did not manage to impart his wisdom to his sons.
These men, who are presumably present at this conversation, do not defend themselves. He says that Clinias, younger brother of Alcibiades, was taken from the family for fear that Alcibiades would corrupt him, and he was given back as a hopeless case. Socrates says he could multiply examples, but thinks his point is sufficiently established.
It might be noted that this is not the first time that Socrates maligns Pericles' parenting. In the Meno he trots out the sons of Pericles as examples of the unteachability of virtue. He implies Pericles there that these men, Paralus and Xanthippus, are inferior to their father.""
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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for" Ernest Hemingway
"The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many" Spartan King Leonidas
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