Why do men seek honour? Surely in order to confirm the favorable opinion they have formed of themselves.

The structural unity of the parts is such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and dis­turbed. For a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference is not an organic part of the whole.

Emotions of any kind can be evoked by melody and rhythm; therefore music has the power to form character.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process different from but analogous to that. The thinking part of the soul must therefore be, while impassable, capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be potentially identical in character with its object without being the object. Mind must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible.

The government of freemen is nobler and implies more virtue than despotic government. Neither is a city to be deemed happy or a legislator to be praised because he trains his citizens to conquer and obtain dominion over their neighbors, for there is great evil in this.