When there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end.

The greatest of all pleasures is the pleasure of learning.

The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.

Music has the power of producing a certain effect on the moral character of the soul, and if it has the power to do this, it is clear that the young must be directed to music and must be educated in it.

One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property; and that the limit should be fixed by calculating the chances of mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons. The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

Equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the first I mean sameness of equality in number or size; by the second, equality of ratios.

Laughter is a bodily exercise, precious to Health