Quotes to inspire and reflect

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.

The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.

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.

The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.

The soul of him who has education is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man's education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good for nothing to the world below.

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.

The rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know.

The soul takes flight to the world that is invisible but there arriving she is sure of bliss and forever dwells in paradise.

The purpose of education is to give to the body and to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable.

The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge.

The plan grows under the author's hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins.

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

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

The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.

The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears, he is a protector.

The only real ill-doing is the deprivation of knowledge.

The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.

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

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 philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.

The man who finds that in the course of his life he has done a lot of wrong often wakes up at night in terror, like a child with a nightmare, and his life is full of foreboding: but the man who is conscious of no wrongdoing is filled with cheerfulness and hope.

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.

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

The madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings.

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.

The good are like one another, and friends to one another; and ... the bad, as is often said of them, are never at unity with one another or with themselves, but are passionate and restless: and that which is at variance and enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or harmony with any other thing.

The like is not the friend of the like in as far as he is like; still the good may be the friend of the good in as far as he is good.

The helpful is beautiful; only the harmful is ugly.

The key is not to live but to live well.

The excellence and righteousness for each thing depend solely on the use for which it was created. This naturally means that the user has the most experience of it and must tell the maker how it works best.

The greatest penalty of evildoing; namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.

The desire for sex turns the penis into a disobedient thing with a mind of its own. Like an animal that will not listen ..it tries to take complete control.

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.

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.

Take a look around, then, and see that none of the uninitiated are listening. Now by the uninitiated I mean the people who believe in nothing but what they can grasp in their hands, and who will not allow that action or generation or anything invisible can have real existence.

Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the person that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool

The body is the tomb of the soul

Similarly with regard to truth, won't we say that a soul is maimed if it hates a voluntary falsehood, cannot endure to have one in itself, and is greatly angered when it exists in others, but is nonetheless content to accept an involuntary falsehood, isn't angry when it is caught being ignorant, and bears its lack of learning easily, wallowing in it like a pig?

The desires of the worthless many are controlled by the desires and knowledge of the decent few

Self-conquest is the greatest of victories.

Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains; some in desires, and some in fears; and some are cowards under the same conditions.

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

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

Pleasure is the bait of sin

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.

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.

Philosophy is an elegant thing, if anyone modestly meddles with it, but if they are conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts them.