Revolutions are effected in two ways, by force and by fraud.

All teaching and all intellectual learning come about from already existing knowledge.

It has been handed down in mythical form from earliest times to posterity, that there are gods, and that the divine (Deity) compasses all nature. All beside this has been added, after the mythical style, for the purpose of persuading the multitude, and for the interests of the laws, and the advantage of the state.

The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to.

In the many forms of government which have sprung up there has always been an acknowledgement of justice and proportionate equality, although mankind fail in attaining them, as indeed I have already explained. Democracy, for example, arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

Sophocles said he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were.