Misanthropy ariseth from a man trusting another without having sufficient knowledge of his character, and, thinking him to be truthful, sincere, and honourable, finds a little afterwards that he is wicked, faithless, and then he meets with another of the same character. When a man experiences this often, and more particularly from those whom he considered his most dear and best friends, at last, having frequently made a slip, he hates the whole world, and thinks that there is nothing sound at all in any of them.

The fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown.

I take it that our state, having been founded and built up on the right lines, is good in the complete sense of the word.

Hence it is from the representation of things spoken by means of posture and gesture that the whole of the art of dance has been elaborated.

The form of law which I propose would be as follows: In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues-not faction, but rather distraction-there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil . . . Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or of wealth.

Arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tngible objects into the argument.

The judge should not be young, he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others.