Every formed disposition of the soul realizes its full nature in relation to and dealing with that class of objects by which it is its nature to be corrupted or improved.
Music has the power of producing a certain effect on the moral character of the soul, and if it has the power to do this, it is clear that the young must be directed to music and must be educated in it.
Great statesmen seem to direct and rule by a sort of power to put themselves in the place of the nation over which they are set, and may thus be said to possess the souls of poets at the same time they display the coarser sense and the more vulgar sagacity of practical men of business.
It's like this, I think: the excellence of a good body doesn't make the soul good, but the other way around: the excellence of a good soul makes the body as good as it can be.
Love partakes of the soul itself. it is of the same nature. like it, it is a divine spark, like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable, it is the point of fire which is within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can limit and nothing can extinguish.
Books never make religions, but religions make books. We must not forget that. No book ever created God, but God inspired all the great books. And no book ever created a soul.