"The life which is unexamined is not worth living."
"Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own."
"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."
"Doesnβt it follow that a shipβs captain or ruler wonβt 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."
