Comment: The Courage Of Civility

http://alahumanitiesreview.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/the-cour...

"I have been convicted because I was at a loss, not however, for speeches but for daring and shamelessness and willingness to say the sorts of things to you that you would have been most pleased to hear; me wailing and lamenting, and doing and saying any other things unworthy of me, as I affirm—such things as you have been accustomed to hear from others.  But neither did I then suppose that I should do anything unsuitable to a free man because of the danger, nor do I now regret that I made my defense speech like this: I much prefer to die having made my defense speech in this way than to live in that way."
—Socrates of Athens.