Greatness of Soul seems therefore to be as it were a crowning ornament of the virtues; it enhances their greatness, and it cannot exist without them. Hence it is hard to be truly great-souled, for greatness of soul is impossible without moral nobility.

The shape of the heaven is of necessity spherical; for that is the shape most appropriate to its substance and also by nature primary.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

The line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive.

No state will be well administered unless the middle class holds sway.

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

Hence both women and children must be educated with an eye to the constitution, if indeed it makes any difference to the virtue of a city-state that its children be virtuous, and its women too. And it must make a difference, since half the free population are women, and from children come those who participate in the constitution.