Now as soon as Cephalus saw me he greeted me and said; Socrates, you don’t often come down to the Peiraeus to see us; but you should. Yes, if I were still able to make my way, easily to the city, there would be no need for you to come here, since we could go to you; but nowadays you should come here more frequently. Since I must say that for me at least, as the other pleasures, the bodily ones, lose their intensity, the desires and pleasures associated with discussions increase all the more. So, you must do this; be a companion to these young men and visit us, here, frequently, as though we were your friends and closest kin.
Very well, Cephalus, said I, indeed I enjoy conversing with people who are very old. I think we need to learn from them, as though they had traversed a road on which we too will surely have to proceed; what is it like? Is it rough and difficult, or is it easy and smooth? What’s more, I would love to find out, from you, how you see this, since you are already at the time of life that the poets call “old age’s threshold”; is life difficult, or how do you describe it?
Republic Book I, 328c – 328e