In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.

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

The wisest have the most authority.

To escape from evil we must be made as far as possible like God; and the resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise.

I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study [of astronomy] compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to higher things.