Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

You ought not to heal the body without the soul, for this is the great error of our day in treating the human body.

We understand why children are afraid of darkness ... but why are men afraid of light?

Until philosophers hold power, neither states nor individuals will have rest from trouble.

So the state founded on natural principles is wise as a whole in virtue of the knowledge inherent in its smallest constituent class, which exercises authority over the rest. And the smallest class is the one which naturally possesses that form of knowledge which alone of all others deserves the title of wisdom.

Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites.

. . . you did not seem to me over-fond of money. And this is the way in general with those who have not made it themselves, while those who have are twice as fond of it as anyone else. For just as poets are fond of their own poems, and fathers of their own children, so money-makers become devoted to money, not only because, like other people, they find it useful, but because it's their own creation.