"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
"There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands."
"Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike."
"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."
"The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom."
"And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul."
"Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class."
"We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue."
"Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation."
"A state arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants."
"All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else."
"The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so."
"Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others."
"I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work."
"No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return."
"Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good."
"We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise."
"The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men."
"No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory."
