"It seems to me that many fall into it even against their will, and fancy they are discussing, when they are merely debating, because they cannot distinguish the meanings of a term, in their investigation of any question, but carry on their opposition to what is stated, by attacking the mere words, employing the art of debate, and not that of philosophical discussion."


"Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another."


"He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it."


"Assuredly he will love that most whose interests he regards as identical with his own, and in whose prosperity or adversity he believes his own fortunes to be involved."


"There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help and what they cannot."


"All learning has an emotional base."


"Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended."


"You should not honor men more than truth."


"No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern."


"No matter how hard you fight the darkness, every light casts a shadow, and the closer you get to the light, the darker that shadow becomes."


"Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.,."


"It is impossible to improve the world if first the man does not improve."


"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."


"No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth."


"Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him."


"Let nobody speak mischief of anybody."


"No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself."


"He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him."


"A life without investigation is not worth living."


"There are three arts which are concerned with all things. One which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them."


"The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant."


"There is nothing I like better than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire whether the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult. Is life harder toward the end, or what report do you give it?"


"Those who don't know must learn from those who do."


"Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day."


"Certainly we shall have to look to ourselves, and try to find someone who will help in some way or other to improve us."


"When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income."


"The love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another."


"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly."


"If people despise money when young, but grow to love it more and more as they grow older and no longer devote themselves to excellence as the best guardian, the power of reasoned, educated speech, leaves them."


"Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding."


"The constrained performance of bodily labour does, it is true, exert no evil influence on the body; but in the case of the mind, no study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory."


"Haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing? At the best it is blind—isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road?"


"Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery."


"Everyone thinks because it is solely responsible for the wisdom or folly of his life, that is to say of his destiny."


"The wrong use of a thing is far worse than the non-use."


"Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal."


"This alone is to be feared: the closed mind, the sleeping imagination, the death of spirit.,."


"Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil."


"Love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good."


"Excellence of understanding comes from something divine, whereas the other excellences are probably close to the body."


"Must not all things at last be swallowed up in Death?"


"A house that has a library in it has a soul."


"A principle which has any soundness should stand firm not only just now, but always."


"To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way."


"Let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly."


"That's what education should be ... the art of orientation. Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldn't be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isn't facing the right way."


"The measure of a man is what he does with power."


"I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."


"The love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another."


"You know that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?"


"There is nothing I like better than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire whether the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult. Is life harder toward the end, or what report do you give it?"


"Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.,."


"The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation."


"I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense."


"If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life."


"He that lendeth to another in time of prosperity, shall never want help himself in the time of adversity."


"Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes."


"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."


"Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine. A man who uses reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as perfect can be. He stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine; ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by god."


"A freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind."


"Above all things truth beareth away the victory."


"Whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man –whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation."


"Everyone thinks because it is solely responsible for the wisdom or folly of his life, that is to say of his destiny."


"Never discourage anyone. who continually makes progress, no matter how slow."


"It is impossible to improve the world if first the man does not improve."


"Honesty is for the most part, less profitable than dishonesty."


"It is by justice, that we can authenticate a man's value or nullity, the absence of justice, is the absence of what makes him man."


"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another."


"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."


"The makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth."


"Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know."


"Wealth is well known to be a great comforter."


"If a man says that it is right to give everyone his due, and therefore thinks within his own mind that injury is due from a just man to his enemies but kindness to his friends, he was not wise who said so, for he spoke not the truth, for in no case has it appeared to be just to injure any one."


"Love is the joy of the good the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods."


"Of necessity, the most like are most full of envy, strife, and hatred of one another, and the most unlike of friendship. For the poor man is compelled to be the friend of the rich, and the weak requires the aid of the strong, and the sick man of the physician; everyone who knows not has to love and court him who knows."


"Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil."


"Beauty is certainly a soft, smooth, slippery thing, and therefore of a nature which easily slips in and permeates our souls."


"Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly."


"Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large."


"Everyone seeks his half."


"As wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves."


"No man should bring children into world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education."


"When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income."


"The helpful is beautiful; only the harmful is ugly."


"A freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind."


"Those who don't know must learn from those who do."


"No matter how hard you fight the darkness, every light casts a shadow, and the closer you get to the light, the darker that shadow becomes."


"There's a victory and defeat. The first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself."


"Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day."


"I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with."


"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."


"Haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing? At the best it is blind—isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road?"


"An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers."


"All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince."


"It is easy to forgive children who are afraid of the dark but the real tragedy of life is men who are afraid of the light."


"Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore, he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer.,."


"Of necessity, the most like are most full of envy, strife, and hatred of one another, and the most unlike of friendship. For the poor man is compelled to be the friend of the rich, and the weak requires the aid of the strong, and the sick man of the physician; everyone who knows not has to love and court him who knows."


"Nothing could be more important than that the work of a soldier is well done."


"Will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice?"


"Is there any self-existent fire? and do all those things which we call self-existent exist? or are only those things which we see, or in some way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and nothing whatever besides them? And is all that which we call an intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name?"


"Human behavior flows from three main sources desire, emotion, and knowledge."


"Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up."


"Excellence must be the health and wellbeing of the soul."


"Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended."


"True friendship can exist only between equals."


"The perfect state is one where men weep and rejoice over the same things."


"Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day."


"So when a man surrenders to the sound of music and lets its sweet, soft, mournful strains, which we have just described, be funneled into his soul through his ears, and gives up all his time to the glamorous moanings of song, the effect at first on his energy and initiative of mind, if he has any, is to soften it as iron is softened in a furnace, and made workable instead of hard and unworkable: but if he persists and does not break the enchantment, the next stage is that it melts and runs, till the spirit has quite run out of him and his mental sinews are cut.,."


"First and best victory is to conquer self. To be conquered by self is, of all things the most shameful and objectionable."


"Those who have knowledge are more confident than those who have no knowledge, and they are more confident after they have learned than before."


"Harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees."


"Necessity is the mother of invention."


"Must not all things at last be swallowed up in Death?"


"I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."


"If the truth of all things that are is always in our soul, then the soul must be immortal, so you should take courage and whatever you do not happen to know, that is to remember, at present, you must endeavor to discover and recollect I cannot swear to everything I have said in this argument but one thing I am ready to fight for in word and deed, that we shall be better, braver and more active men if we believe it right to look for what we do not know, than if we think we cannot discover it and have no duty to seek it."


"Even the gods love jokes."


"I am not given to finding fault, for there are innumerable fools."


"When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income."


"They think that you bear old age more easily not because of the way you live but because you’re wealthy, for the wealthy, they say, have many consolations."


"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."


"It is only just that anything that up on its own should feel it has nothing to repay for an upbringing which it owes no one."


"When you admonish a wrongdoer, do so gently, that it may not lead to hostility."


"All learning is in the learner, not the teacher."


"Complacent ignorance is the most lethal sickness of the soul."


"Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness."


"The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation."


"Each person must tend to the business that accords with his nature."


"Between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil."


"Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him."


"Have you not perceived that imitations, whether of bodily gestures, tones of voice, or modes of thought, if they be persevered in from an early age, are apt to grow into habits and a second nature?"


"The man deserved his fate, deny it who can; yes, but the fate did not deserve the man."


"The State which we have founded must possess the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, discipline and justice ... Justice is the principle which has in fact been followed throughout, the principle of one man one job, of minding ones own business, in the sense of doing the job for which one is naturally fitted and not interfering with other people."


"Most men in power become villains."


"True friendship can exist only between equals."


"Wealth is well known to be a great comforter."


"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is god, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but never less, dazzling, passionate, and eternal form."


"Those who tell the stories rule society."


"We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we're looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven't found it."


"As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser."


"The key is not to live but to live well."


"When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself."


"Artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies."


"Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures."


"When the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowledge? Is not that the inference?"


"The matter is as it is in all other cases: If it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice.,."


"The tools that would teach men their own use would be beyond price."


"The love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another."


"Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore, he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer.,."


"Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous."


"In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill… we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one."


"Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine. A man who uses reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as perfect can be. He stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine; ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by god."


"He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act."


"I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."


"Above all things truth beareth away the victory."


"Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each."


"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly."


"As there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists, or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world."


"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."


"As it is, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him."


"Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."


"If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life."


"A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul."


"Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves or their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others."


"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."


"The perfect state is one where men weep and rejoice over the same things."


"All is flux, nothing stays still."


"Appearance tyrannizes over truth."


"Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half."


"Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being."


"The thing to be done does not choose, I imagine, to tarry the leisure of the doer, but the doer must be at the beck of the thing to be done, and not treat it as a secondary affair."


"Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil."


"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is god, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but never less, dazzling, passionate, and eternal form."


"This feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy."


"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."


"You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters."


"If you are wise, all men will be your friends and kindred, for you will be useful."


"Certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden."


"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another."


"I used to imagine that no human can make men good; but I know better now."


"No human thing is of serious importance."


"Think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. They are ready to run all risks greater far than they would have run for their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal."


"If there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonor, and emulating one another in honor; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger?"


"At the touch of love, Everyone becomes a poet."


"The perfect state is one where men weep and rejoice over the same things."


"The reason is that they utter these words of theirs not by virtue of a skill, but by a divine power - otherwise, if they knew how to speak well on one topic thanks to a skill, they would know how to speak about every other topic too."


"Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it."


"Friends have all things in common."


"I have good hope that there is something after death."


"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."


"No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself."


"By harming a horse, you decrease his excellence. Thus, by harming a person, you decrease their excellence."


"So when a man surrenders to the sound of music and lets its sweet, soft, mournful strains, which we have just described, be funneled into his soul through his ears, and gives up all his time to the glamorous moanings of song, the effect at first on his energy and initiative of mind, if he has any, is to soften it as iron is softened in a furnace, and made workable instead of hard and unworkable: but if he persists and does not break the enchantment, the next stage is that it melts and runs, till the spirit has quite run out of him and his mental sinews are cut.,."


"Is not the love of learning identical with a philosophical disposition?"


"There's a victory and defeat. The first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself."


"The truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing."


"All enquiry and all learning is but recollection."


"I am not given to finding fault, for there are innumerable fools."


"Wisdom alone is the true and unalloyed coin for which we ought to exchange all things, for this and with this everything is bought and sold Fortitude, temperance, and justice; in a word, true virtue subsists with wisdom."


"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."


"It's like this, I think: the excellence of a good body doesn't make the soul good, but the other way around: the excellence of a good soul makes the body as good as it can be.,."


"Knowledge is the food of the soul."


"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant."


"Eat and drink and sit with the mighty, and make yourself agreeable to them; for from the good you will learn what is good, but if you mix with the bad you will lose the intelligence which you already have."


"It's not at all uncommon to find a person's desires compelling him to go against his reason, and to see him cursing himself and venting his passion on the source of the compulsion within him. It's as if there were two warring factions, with passion fighting on the side of reason."


"He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it."