To honor with hymns and panegyrics those who are still alive is not safe; a man should run his course and make a fair ending, and then we will praise him; and let praise be given equally to women as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue.

The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. ... This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Let him take heart who does advance, even in the smallest degree.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

Discordance is evil. Harmony is virtue.

Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.

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.