Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
Plato
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
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.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
Courage is knowing what not to fear.
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
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.
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.
Science is nothing but perception.
The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.
Love is a serious mental disease.
Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.
People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.
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.
The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.
When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.
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.
Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.
A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.
Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.
Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.
This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.
No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.
When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.
Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
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.
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.
Democracy passes into despotism.
To be sure I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives consent.
