The soul is like a pair of winged horses and a charioteer joined in natural union.

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

Take a look around, then, and see that none of the uninitiated are listening. Now by the uninitiated I mean the people who believe in nothing but what they can grasp in their hands, and who will not allow that action or generation or anything invisible can have real existence.

What essence is to generation, that truth is to belief.

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.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest...and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.