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.

In a polity, each citizen is to possess his own arms, which are not supplied or owned by the state.

Thinking is different from perceiving and is held to be in part imagination, in part judgment

It has been handed down in mythical form from earliest times to posterity, that there are gods, and that the divine (Deity) compasses all nature. All beside this has been added, after the mythical style, for the purpose of persuading the multitude, and for the interests of the laws, and the advantage of the state.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

But the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Prosperity makes friends and adversity tries them. A true friend is one soul in two bodies