Wise people have an inward sense of what is beautiful, and the highest wisdom is to trust this intuition and be guided by it.

All are agreed that the various moral qualities are in a sense bestowed by nature: we are just, and capable of temperance, and brave, and possessed of the other virtues from the moment of our birth. But nevertheless we expect to find that true goodness is something different, and that the virtues in the true sense come to belong to us in another way. For even children and wild animals possess the natural dispositions, yet without Intelligence these may manifestly be harmful.

It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws.

He who cannot see the truth for himself, nor, hearing it from others, store it away in his mind, that man is utterly worthless.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

Now it is evident that the form of government is best in which every man, whoever he is, can act best and live happily.

No one praises happiness as one praises justice, but we call it a 'blessing,' deeming it something higher and more divine than things we praise.