From my grandfather's father, I learned to dispense with attendance at public schools, and to enjoy good teachers at home, and to recognize that on such things money should be eagerly spent.

Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible; life in a palace is possible; therefore even in a palace a right life is possible.

Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?

Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.

Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.

Do not expect Plato's ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement.

Bear in mind that the measure of a man is the worth of the things he cares about. If it is good to say or do something, then it is even better to be criticized for having said or done it.