Recommended translations:

• Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
• Plato. The Republic. Translated by Tom Griffith. Edited by G. R. F. Ferrari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Excerpt:

“What you say is very fine indeed, Cephalus,” I said. “But as to this very thing, justice, shall we so simply assert that it is the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another, or is to do these very things sometimes just and sometimes unjust? Take this case as an example of what I mean: everyone would surely say that if a man takes weapons from a friend when the latter is of sound mind, and the friend demands them back when he is mad, one shouldn’t give back such things, and the man who gave them back would not be just, and moreover, one should not be willing to tell someone in this state the whole truth.”

“What you say is right,” he said.

“Then this isn’t the definition of justice, speaking the truth and giving back what one takes.”

 

Online:
Basic Books (trans. Bloom)
Amazon (trans. Bloom)
Amazon (trans. Griffith)
Project Perseus (Read Free Online in English)
Project Perseus (Read Free Online in Greek)
Project Gutenberg (Read Free Online)