Just as bees make honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so do the wise profit from the most difficult of experiences.

The human race will have no respite from evils until those who are really philosophers acquire political power or until, through some divine dispensation, those who rule and have political authority in the cities become real philosophers.

Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.

And we have made of ourselves living cesspools, and driven doctors to invent names for our diseases.

Music gives wings to the mind and flight to the imagination.

One cannot make a slave of a free person, for a free person is free even in a prison.

There are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen.