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.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

The man with a host of friends who slaps on the back everybody he meets is regarded as the friend of nobody.

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interest are at stake.

Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.

In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning of change, and in the second place they should not rely upon the political devices of which I have already spoken invented only to deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.