Some men turn every quality or art into a means of making money; this they conceive to be the end, and to the promotion of the end all things must contribute.

Let us first understand the facts and then we may seek the cause.

A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not mere companionship.

Bad men are full of repentance.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

It belongs to small-mindedness to be unable to bear either honor or dishonor, either good fortune or bad, but to be filled with conceit when honored and puffed up by trifling good fortune, and to be unable to bear even the smallest dishonor and to deem any chance failure a great misfortune, and to be distressed and annonyed at everything. Moreover the small-minded man is the sort of person to call all slights an insult and dishonor, even those that are due to ignorance or forgetfulness. Small-mindedness is accompanied by pettiness, querulousness, pessimism and self-abasement.

The worst thing about slavery is that the slaves eventually get to like it.