Rhetoricians should accuse themselves
Socrates argues that, since it is better to be wronged than to do wrong, the best thing of all for a rhetorician's soul would be for him to run to the courts and accuse himself of a crime. Socrates uses the seeming foolishness of this claim to bait his interlocutors into accepting the notion of goodness as a durable and lasting state, instead of what is immediately comfortable.
The Judgment of Naked Souls
Though he claims to be a philosopher thinking rationally, Socrates ends his dialogue with the "old wives' tale" of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades judging souls in the afterlife. Socrates uses this image ironically to bring home to his worldly interlocutors just how distanced they are from real philosophical thinking, which values reality over appearance. To Gorgias, Callicles and Polus, the truth is as much of an old wives' tale as this old legend.
The Weak Tyrant
Socrates argues that a tyrant, usually considered strong, is actually the weakest person in the city. Though this is not literally true, it serves the larger point that to follow one's desires blindly is ultimately a kind of slavery to one's owns self
Suffering wrong is worse than doing it
Though we now recognise this claim as one of the central tenets of Christianity, Plato's listeners would have assumed that Socrates wasn't being entirely serious. Socrates uses this counter-intuitive claim to illustrate the idea that moral instruction is good for the soul, no matter how much pain it causes.
The best use of rhetoric is against oneself
Socrates claims that rhetoric is best applied not to audiences, but to one's own self. His interlocutors, who regularly speak in front of audiences, assume that he is joking. Talking eloquently to one's own self appears to be a waste of time. But Socrates makes this point to illustrate a larger point about philosophy, which he considers a dialogue with one's own self, in order to sharpen one's judgment and to disabuse oneself of unexamined ideas.
