To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat.

But tell me, this physician of whom you were just speaking, is he a moneymaker, an earner of fees, or a healer of the sick?

Only the dead will know the end of the war.

No one knows whether death is really the greatest blessing a man can have, but they fear it is the greatest curse, as if they knew well.

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 human race will have no respite from evils until those who are really philosophers acquire political power or until, through some divine dispensation, those who rule and have political authority in the cities become real philosophers.

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