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

"No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong. Only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again."

"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."

"Observe that open loves are held to be more honorable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honorable."

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

"I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."

"When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income."

"I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am saying is true."

"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."

"Love is a good poet and accomplished in all the fine arts; for no one can give to another that which he has not himself, or teach that of which he has no knowledge. Who will deny that the creation of the animals is his doing? Are they not all the works of his wisdom, born and begotten of him? And as to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?"

"Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk."

"A work well begun is half ended."

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

"I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."

"If a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest."

"They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil, but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants, and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice, it is a mean or compromise."

"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."

"This is not difficult, O Athenians! to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to death; but they condemned by truth, as guilty of iniquity and injustice: and I abide my sentence, and so do they. These things, perhaps, ought so to be, and I think that they are for the best.,."

"Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly."

"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."