Selfishness doesn't consist in a love to yourself, but in a big degree of such love.

If men are given food, but no chastisement nor any work, they become insolent.

The same things are best both for individuals and for states, and these are the things which the legislator ought to implant in the minds of his citizens.

But a man's best friend is the one who not only wishes him well but wishes it for his own sake (even though nobody will ever know it): and this condition is best fulfilled by his attitude towards himself - and similarly with all the other attributes that go to define a friend. For we have said before that all friendly feelings for others are extensions of a man's feelings for himself.

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

These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual.

Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.