Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.
He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Courage is knowing what not to fear.
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.
Science is nothing but perception.
