That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

The beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.

Whenever a person strives, by the help of dialectic, to start in pursuit of every reality by a simple process of reason, independent of all sensuous information - never flinching, until by an act of the pure intelligence he has grasped the real nature of good - he arrives at the very end of the intellectual world.

The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies... they are the trees and the plants and the seeds.

Even in reaching for the beautiful there is beauty, and also in suffering whatever it is that one suffers en route.

The love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another.