Athenian men, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you.

Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.

What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

He who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.

The flute is not an instrument that has a good moral effect - it is too exciting.

Arguments, like men, are often pretenders.