Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
All loves should be simply stepping stones to the love of God. So it was with me; and blessed be his name for his great goodness and mercy.
Let men of all ranks whether they are successful, or unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not; let them do their duty, and rest satisfied.
No town can live peacefully whatever its laws when its citizens do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love
Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest...and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war
The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.
As to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?-he whom love touches not walks in darkness.
If we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself.
Hence it is from the representation of things spoken by means of posture and gesture that the whole of the art of dance has been elaborated.
I can show you that the art of calculation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical relations to themselves and to each other.
No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.
Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom
Seven years of silent inquiry are needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellow-men.
Those who have knowledge are more confident than those who have no knowledge, and they are more confident after they have learned than before.
Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods.
He who advises a sick man, whose manner of life is prejudicial to health, is clearly bound first of all to change his patient's manner of life.
The god, O men, seems to me to be really wise; and by his oracle to mean this, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness and of none effect.
It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.
Philosophy is an elegant thing, if anyone modestly meddles with it; but if they are conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts them.
People regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust, - about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.
You cannot conceive the many without the one...The study of the unit is among those that lead the mind on and turn it to the vision of reality.
It is our duty to select the best and most dependable theory that human intelligence can supply, and use it as a raft to ride the seas of life.
It would be better for me ... that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.
Avoid compulsion and let early education be a matter of amusement. Young children learn by games; compulsory education cannot remain in the soul.
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.
Thus does the Muse herself move men divinely inspired, and through them thus inspired a Chain hangs together of others inspired divinely likewise.
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.
The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.
Let every man remind their descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind.
Socrates isguilty of corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing indeities of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the state.
Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration can confer upon man any greater blessing than this [live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth].
The prison of lust is just that very one of which the soul shuts the doors upon herself; for each act of indulgence is the shooting of a fresh bolt.
...there are some who are naturally fitted for philosophy and political leadership, while the rest should follow their lead and let philosophy alone.
The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians because they are ignorant of the whole... For the part can never be well unless the whole is well.
For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates ... in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes.
Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him.
Cooking is a form of flattery....a mischievous, deceitful, mean and ignoble activity, which cheats us by shapes and colors, by smoothing and draping.
Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth... and to the maximum of power, I exhort all other men to do the same.
Worthy of honor is he who does no injustice, and more than twofold honor, if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any.
Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.
You ought not attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so neither ought you attempt to cure the body without the soul.
For when there are no words, it is very difficult to recognize the meaning of the harmony and rhythm, or to see any worldly object is imitated by them.
Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none, or very slight ones.
The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics alone.
He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
Nothing is more unworthy of a wise man, or ought to trouble him more, than to have allowed more time for trifling, and useless things, than they deserve.
The good man is the only excellent musician, because he gives forth a perfect harmony not with a lyre or other instrument but with the whole of his life.
Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away. . . . A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons hiom.
And the quality of good judgement is clearly a form of knowledge and skill, as it is because of knowledge and not because of ignorance that we judge well.
One trait in the philosopher's character we can assume is his love of the knowledge that reveals eternal reality, the realm unaffected by change and decay.