isciples not truth, but
only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and
will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will
generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show
of wisdom without the reality.

PHAEDRUS: Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any
other country.

SOCRATES: There was a tradition in the temple of Dodona that oaks first
gave prophetic utterances. The men of old, unlike in their simplicity to
young philosophy, deemed that if they heard the truth even from 'oak or
rock,' it was enough for them; whereas you seem to consider not whether
a thing is or is not true, but who the speaker is and from what country
the tale comes.

PHAEDRUS: I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke; and I think that the
Theban is right in his view about letters.

SOCRATES: He would be a very simple person, and quite a stranger to the
oracles of Thamus or Ammon, who should leave in writing or receive
in writing any art under the idea that the written word would be
intelligible or certain; or who deemed that writing was at all better
than knowledge and recollection of the same matters?

PHAEDRUS: That is most true.

SOCRATES: I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately
like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of
life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence.
And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had
intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one
of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they
have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those
who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should
reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no
parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.

PHAEDRUS: That again is most true.

SOCRATES: Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than
this, and having far greater power--a son of the same family, but
lawfully begotten?

PHAEDRUS: Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?

SOCRATES: I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner,
which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.

PHAEDRUS: You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of
which the written word is properly no more than an image?

SOCRAT