Plato conceived of philosophy as necessarily gregarious rather than solitary. The exposure of presumptions is best done in company, the more argumentative the better.

The sum and substance of education is the right training that effectually leads the soul of the child at play on to the love of the calling in its adult life.

Philosophical thinking that doesn't do violence to one's settled mind is no philosophical thinking at all.

Philosophy is this amazing technique we've devised for getting reality to answer us back when we're getting it wrong. Science itself can't make those arguments. You actually have to rely on philosophy, on philosophy of science.

I've got access to your mysterious body but not your mysterious soul. Souls seem to me the loneliest possibility of all.

The good polis is made by the good person, his moral character intact, and the good polis, in turn, helps turn out good persons, their moral character intact.

Everyone loves a hero. What we differ on is the question of who the heroes are, because we differ over what matters. And who matters is a function of what matters. [If] what matters is intelligence, the people who matter are the intelligent, and the people who matter the most, the heroes, are the geniuses.