O youth or young man, who fancy that you are neglected by the gods, know that if you become worse, you shall go to worse souls, or if better to the better... In every succession of life and death, you will do and suffer what like may fitly suffer at the hands of like. This is the justice of heaven.

If one sins against the laws of proportion and gives something too big to something too small to carry it - too big sails to too small a ship, too big meals to too small a body, too big powers to too small a soul - the result is bound to be a complete upset. In an outburst of hubris the overfed body will rush into sickness, while the jack-in-office will rush into the unrighteousness that hubris always breeds.

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.

More will be accomplished, and better, and with more ease, if every man does what he is best fitted to do, and nothing else.

The doctors will treat those of your citizens whose physical and psychological constitution is good: as for the others, they will leave the unhealthy to die and those whose psychological constitution is incurably warped they will be put to death.

They would be subject to no one, neither to lawful ruler nor to the reign of law, but would be altogether and absolutely free. That is the way they got their tyrants, for either servitude or freedom, when it goes to extremes, is an utter bane, while either in due measure is altogether a boon.

If it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice.