Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.

No man should be angry with what is true.

They (the poets) are to us in a manner the fathers and authors of the wisdom.

Before all it's necessary to look after the Soul, if you want the head and the rest of the body to function correctly.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

The whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death.

For the poets tell us, don't they, that the melodies they bring us are gathered from rills that run with honey, out of glens and gardens of the Muses, and they bring them as bees do honey, flying like the bees? And what they say is true, for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in him. So long as he has this in his possession, no man is able to make poetry or to chant in prophecy.