People do not naturally become morally excellent or practically wise. They become so, if at all, only as the result of lifelong personal and community effort.
My proof convinces the ignorant, and the wise man's proof convinces me. But he whose reasoning falls between wisdom and ignorance, I neither can convince him, nor can he convince me.
Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy.
But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and notlead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.
Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without scent, are wise words when spoken, but fruitless these words are when not carried out by the speaker.
It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower -- and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel.
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes; But no too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes: Disguise even tenderness if thou art wise.
The argument of Alcidamas: Everyone honours the wise. Thus the Parians have honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue; the Chians Homer, though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans Sappho, though she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made Chilon a member of their senate, though they are the least literary of men; the inhabitants of Lampsacus gave public burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien, and honour him even to this day.