The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.

The beginning is half of the whole.

Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.

Philosophy is the highest music.

When the citizens of a society can see and hear their leaders, then that society should be seen as one.

The poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, each one possessed by the divinity to whom he is in bondage.

He who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.