Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.

There is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesn't just fall to a person's lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesn't go to anyone other than oneself to find her.

The man who does something under orders is not unhappy; he is unhappy who does something against his will.

Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.

I am not born from a single place. My country is the whole world.

Plato once wanted to punish one of his slaves and asked his nephew to do the actual whipping for he himself did not own his anger.

It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and - even more surprising - it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.