The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; for there is a law of contraries; the excess of freedom passes into the excess of slavery, and the greater the freedom the greater the slavery.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
If it feels right and I’m not going against any energy in myself or the situation, there would be no limit.
A good education is another name for happiness.
To remove ignorance is an important branch of benevolence.
A good education is that which prepares us for our future sphere of action and makes us contented with that situation in life in which God, in his infinite mercy, has seen fit to place us, to be perfectly resigned to our lot in life, whatever it may be.
When the modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.
Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.
Itself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single.
I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.
But a man whose actions do not agree with his words is an annoyance to me; and the better he speaks the more I hate him, and then I seem to be a hater of discourse.
Knowledge is prior to any particular knowledge, and exists not in the previous state of the individual, but of the race. It is potential, not actual, and can only be appropriated by strenuous exertion.
For knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality.
For the rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers, but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means?
Everything that is responsible for creating something out of nothing is a kind of poetry; and so all the creations of every craft and profession are themselves a kind of poetry, and everyone who practices a craft is a poet.
For wherever a man’s place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying.
But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I.
Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,′ she replied; ’and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good: Wherefore love is of immortality.
I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth? In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.
Wenn etwas irgendwie wird, oder irgend etwas leidet: so wird es nicht, weil es ein Werdendes ist, sondern weil es wird ist es ein Werdendes; noch weil es ein Leidendes ist leidet es; sondern weil es leidet, ist es ein Leidendes.