Quotes to inspire and reflect

How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem.

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?

Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey; hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.

You ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the eyes, so neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul.

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

You should not honor men more than truth.

He who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god.

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

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?

He could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse

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.

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?

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

Great crimes and pure evil come only from vigorous natures perverted by upbringing; a weak nature never does anything great, good or evil.

God is the cause only of good.

Friends have all things in common.

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes.

Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent", in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly".

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

Evil is more opposed to the good than to the no-good.

Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.

Everything desires not like but unlike: for example, the dry desires the moist, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the void the full, the fill the void, and so of all other things; for the opposite is the food of the opposite, whereas receives nothing from like.

Everyone seeks his half

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

Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave had kings among his ancestors.

Even the gods love jokes.

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.

Excellence must be the health and wellbeing of the soul.

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.

Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them? people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust, about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.

Either never, or very seldom, do the quiet actions in life appear to be better than the quick and energetic ones.

Doesn’t it follow that a ship’s captain or ruler won’t seek and order what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to a sailor?.. No one in any position of rule, insofar as he is a ruler, seeks or orders what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to his subjects; the ones of whom he is himself the craftsman. It is to his subjects and what is advantageous and proper to them that he looks, and everything he says and does he says and does for them.

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

Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.

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.

Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike.

Democracy passes into despotism.

Complacent ignorance is the most lethal sickness of the soul

Courage is a kind of salvation. Courage is knowing what not to fear.

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

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

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

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.

Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.

Books are immortal sons defying their sires.