Socrates Guru: Fondness for Pleasure

Socrates taught that the most excellent people, of the greatest wisdom, have to be trained like soldiers in order to withstand the temptations of pleasure and the fears of bodily pain. He proposed a system of exposing those most intelligent and most virtuous of the potential leaders to tests of both pleasure and pain. Only those that could withstand such tests without any alterations of what is considered virtuous behavior were to be qualified to lead others in the government.