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The value of a life is not measured by how long it lasts, but by whether it is good or bad.

Platon · Apologia lui Socrate · -399 · Apologia, 37e1 minute readpublic domain
Someone may tell you that a man should not consider the price of life, but only whether his life is good or bad.Platon · Apologia lui Socrate · -399 · Apologia, 37e

What matters is not how long you live, but how rightly you live.

Socrates separates two questions we often blur: how long a life is and how good it is. Price — years, comfort, safety — is not the criterion; the criterion is how rightly it is lived. An example: someone who lies for a promotion gains years of career but loses the very thing that made life worth living. Length without quality is no gain.

Why it mattersUseful when choosing between a safe position that compromises you and a hard one that leaves your integrity intact.

Length of lifeMoral quality
The scale: duration weighs less than living rightly.

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