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.

At the intersection where your gifts, talents, and abilities meet a human need; therein you will discover your purpose

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

Since the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education should be one and the same for all, and that it should be public, and not private - not as at present, when every one looks after his own children separately, and gives them separate instruction of the sort which he thinks best; the training in things which are of common interest should be the same for all. Neither must we suppose that any one of the citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state, and are each of them a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole.

.. for desire is like a wild beast, and anger perverts rulers and the very best of men. Hence law is intelligence without appetition.

While most of those who hold that the whole heaven is finite say that the earth lies at the center, the philosophers of Italy, the so-called Pythagoreans, assert the contrary. They say that in the middle there is fire, and that the earth is one of the stars, and by its circular motion round the center produces night and day.

For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also it is the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity.