How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories... The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
The greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind, yet the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately!
The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities ... since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.
Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?
And among the other honours and rewards our young men can win for distinguished service in war and in other activities, will be more frequent opportunities to sleep with a woman; this will give us a pretext for ensuring that most of our children are born of that parent.
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.
Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.