The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to.

A poet's object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.

Men become richer not only by increasing their existing wealth but also by decreasing their expenditure.

That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.

The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy.

Men come together in cities in order to live: they remain together in order to live the good life

Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.