“Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.”

“They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil, but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants, and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice, it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation, and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honored by reason of the inability of me to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did.”

“[there are] two kinds of things the nature of which it would be quite wonderful to grasp by means of a systematic art...the first consists in seeing together things that are scattered about everywhere and collecting them into one kind, so that by defining each thing we can make clear the subject of any instruction we wish to give...[the second], in turn, is to be able to cut up each kind according to its species along its natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do...phaedrus, i myself am a lover of these divisions and collections, so that i may be able to think and to speak.”

“You know that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken....Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?We cannot....Anything received into the mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts....”

“The good is twice described in the Philebus as perfect, self- sufficient and seeked by all conscious beings. And the good does not have a contrary: it is not the one end of a scale whose evil would be the other end; it is a measure on any scale."Taken from Bernard SuzannePlato and his dialoguesPursuing Goodness or the Good.Updated Nov 21, 1998”

“When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.”

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