Plato

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

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.

Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.

Philosophy begins in wonder.

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.

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.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

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.

The wisest have the most authority.

One man cannot practice many arts with success.

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.

The gods' service is tolerable, man's intolerable.

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

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

A state arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

Man is a wingless animal with two feet and flat nails.

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 community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

Not to help justice in her need would be an impiety.

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.

Wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

There is no such thing as a lovers' oath.

Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly.

When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

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.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

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.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

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.

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

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

Philosophy is the highest music.