Alcibiades went to Socrates after a night of drinking, full of himself.
He was the golden boy of Athens.
He thought his name and his face made him great, he told the old man as much-Socrates, who was ugly and knew it. Did not argue, he unrolled a map of the world-A big thing. He said, Show me your land-Alcibiades looked.
His great family estate was not even a dot on the map, it was nothing – Then Socrates asked him to speak of justice, to define virtue, the golden boy had no words.
Only the words of other men, repeated — The old man’s questions were like a surgeon’s knife.
Cutting away the pride.
Alcibiades cried-He wasn’t sad, he saw he was empty-A fine house with no one inside.
That is how the old man-measured a man.
Not by the noise he made in the world, but by what was left when the noise was gone