Quote collection
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"Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half."
"Pepper is small in quantity and great in virtue."
"Nothing is more unworthy of a wise man, or ought to trouble him more, than to have allowed more time for trifling, and useless things, than they deserve."
"You ought not to heal the body without the soul, for this is the great error of our day in treating the human body."
"All who do evil and dishonorable things do them against their will."
"The good, of course, is always beautiful, and the beautiful never lacks proportion."
"When anything is in the presence of evil, but is not as yet evil, the presence of good arouses the desire of good in that thing; but the presence of evil, which makes a thing evil, takes away the desire and friendship of the good; for that which was once both good and evil has now become evil only, and the good has no friendship with evil."
"I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power."
"Who are the true philosophers? Those whose passion is to love the truth."
"The music masters familiarize children's minds with rhythms and melodies, thus making them more civilized, more balanced, better adjusted in themselves, and more capable in whatever they say or do, for rhythm and harmony are essential to the whole of life."
"Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away. . . . A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons hiom."
"Moderation, which consists in indifference about little things, and in a prudent and well-proportioned zeal about things of importance, can proceed from nothing but true knowledge, which has its foundation in self-acquaintance."
"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."
"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."
"Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice."
"These, then, will be some of the features of democracy... it will be, in all likelihood, an agreeable, lawless, parti-colored commonwealth, dealing with all alike on a footing of equality, whether they be really equal or not."
"God ever geometrizes."
"Discordance is evil. Harmony is virtue."
"Many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics."
"Socrates isguilty of corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing indeities of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the state."