For the same reason he will only accept such honours as will make him a better man; any others he will decline.

'In that case,' said he, 'he will never be a politician.' Yes, but he will, in his own city; though probably not in his native country, unless by some divine accident.

'You mean that he will be a citizen of the ideal city, which has no place upon earth.' But in heaven, I replied, there is a pattern of such a city, and he who wishes may order his life after that image.
Whether such a state is or ever will be matters not; he will act according to that pattern and no other...
The most noticeable points in the 9th Book of the Republic are:--( 1) the account of pleasure; (2) the number of the interval which divides the king from the tyrant; (3) the pattern which is in heaven.
1.

Plato's account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in this respect contrasts with the later Platonists and the views which are attributed to them by Aristotle.

He is not, like the Cynics, opposed to all pleasure, but rather desires that the several parts of the soul shall have their natural satisfaction; he even agrees with the Epicureans in describing pleasure as something more than the absence of pain.