Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
Plato

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
Plato

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.
Plato

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.
Plato

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.
Plato

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.
Plato

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
Plato

For good nurture and education implant good constitutions.
Plato

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.
Plato

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.
Plato

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Plato

Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly.
Plato

He was a wise man who invented beer.
Plato

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.
Plato

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.
Plato

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.
Plato

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.
Plato

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.
Plato

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?
Plato

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
Plato