“He who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.”

“So where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice”

“Those who tell the stories rule society.”

“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”

“And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man –whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.”

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”