“With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.”

“Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.”

“Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.”

“The poet's function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen, i.e., what is possible as being probable or necessary...Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”

“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.”

“Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.”

“For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.”