Wherefore also these Kinds [elements] occupied different places even before the universe was organised and generated out of them. Before that time, in truth, all these were in a state devoid of reason or measure, but when the work of setting in order this Universe was being undertaken, fire and water and earth and air, although possessing some traces of their known nature, were yet disposed as everything is likely to be in the absence of God; and inasmuch as this was then their natural condition, God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers.
Plato...there are some who are naturally fitted for philosophy and political leadership, while the rest should follow their lead and let philosophy alone.
PlatoHe who is learning and learning and doesn't apply what he knows is like the one who is plowing and plowing and doesn't seed.
PlatoBut tell me, this physician of whom you were just speaking, is he a moneymaker, an earner of fees, or a healer of the sick?
PlatoIf you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange.
PlatoNo man's nature is able to know what is best for the social state of man; or, knowing, always able to do what is best.
PlatoBecause, unlike courage and wisdom, which made our state brave and wise by being present in a particular part of it, discipline operates by being diffused throughout the whole of it. It produces a concord between its strongest and weakest and middle elements, whether you define them by the standard of good sense, or of strength, or of numbers or money or the like. And so we are quite justified in regarding discipline as this sort of natural harmony and agreement between higher and lower about which of them is to rule in state and individual.
Plato