Socrates then sought to solve the divine paradox — how an ignorant man also could be the wisest of all men — in effort to illuminate the meaning of the Oracles' categorical statement that he is the wisest man in the land. After systematically interrogating the politicians, the poets, and the craftsmen, Socrates determined that the politicians were not wise like he was. He says of himself, in reference to a politician: "I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not."(21d). Socrates says that the poets did not understand their poetry; that the prophets and seers did not understand what they said; and that the craftsmen while knowing many things, thought they also had much knowledge on things of which they had none. In that light, Socrates saw himself as a spokesman for the Oracle at Delphi (22e). He asked himself if he would rather be an impostor, like the "wise people" he interrogated, or if he would rather be himself, Socrates of Athens. Socrates tells the jury that he would rather be himself than be anyone else. He says that in searching for a man wiser than himself, he came to be regarded as a social gadfly and acquired a bad reputation among Athens' politically powerful personages.