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I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse.
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For the poet is a light winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses and the mind is no longer with him. When he has not attained this state he is powerless and unable to utter his oracles.
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From all wild beasts, a child is the most difficult to handle.
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The function of the wing is to take what is heavy and raise it up in the region above.
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Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
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For the poets tell us, don't they, that the melodies they bring us are gathered from rills that run with honey, out of glens and gardens of the Muses, and they bring them as bees do honey, flying like the bees? And what they say is true, for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in him. So long as he has this in his possession, no man is able to make poetry or to chant in prophecy.
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The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.
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I don't know anything that gives me greater pleasure, or profit either, than talking or listening to philosophy. But when it comes to ordinary conversation, such as the stuff you talk about financiers and the money market, well, I find it pretty tiresome personally, and I feel sorry that my friends should think they're being very busy when they're really doing absolutely nothing. Of course, I know your idea of me: you think I'm just a poor unfortunate, and I shouldn't wonder if your right. But then I dont THINK that you're unfortunate - I know you are.
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They ought to be gentle to their friends and dangerous to their enemies.
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Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
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He who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one's "uses base" for the sake of money; but this is not honourable.
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Those who refuse to engage in politics will be led by their inferiors.
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To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.
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Putting the shoe on the wrong foot.
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A delightful form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!
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The bees can abide no drones amongst them; but as soon as they begin to be idle, they kill them.
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The only thing worse than suffering an injustice is committing an injustice.
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Those who are not schooled and practised in truth [who are not honest and upright men] can never manage aright the government, nor yet can those who spend their lives as closet philosophers; because the former have no high purpose to guide their actions, while the latter keep aloof from public life.
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Science is nothing but perception.
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Madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human.
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The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of bad men, and, growing like them, to fly from the conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of the bad.
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He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.
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The democratic youth lives along day by day, gratifying the desire that occurs to him, at one time drinking and listening to the flute, at another downing water and reducing, now practicing gymnastic, and again idling and neglecting everything; and sometimes spending his time as though he were occupied in philosophy.
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That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless.