A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

That rule is the better which is exercised over better subjects.

If the art of ship-building were in the wood, ships would exist by nature.

The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things.

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.

The true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy.

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.