Society and the World

We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;— that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.

Wealth, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

Wealth, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

True friendship can exist only between equals.

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

Wars and revolutions and battles, you see, are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

Wars and revolutions and battles, you see, are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

True opinions are a fine thing and do all sorts of good so long as they stay in their place; but they will not stay long. They run away from a man's mind, so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reason. Once they are tied down, they become knowledge, and are stable.

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

Those who tell the stories rule society.

Those who have knowledge are more confident than those who have no knowledge, and they are more confident after they have learned than before.

Those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick-witted at every other kind of knowledge; and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would have been.

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.

They think that you bear old age more easily not because of the way you live but because you’re wealthy, for the wealthy, they say, have many consolations.

There's a victory and defeat. The first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

There is, in my view, the birth of society that each of us, far from being sufficient to itself, on the contrary need a large number of people

There can be no fairer spectacle than that of a man, who combines the possession of moral beauty in his soul with the outward beauty of form, corresponding and harmonizing with the former, because the same great pattern enters both.

Those who don't know must learn from those who do.

The wrong use of a thing is far worse than the non-use.

The useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base

The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.

The worst type of man behaves as badly in his waking life as some men do in their dreams.