Plato's Take

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

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

 Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety  to life and to everything

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in an year of conversation

 We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light

The beginning is the most important part of the work

Human behavior flows from three main sources; desire, emotion, and knowledge

 Courage is knowing what not to fear

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life

To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands

Necessity…the mother of invention

Thinking; the talking of the soul with itself

 A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die

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

We are twice armed if we fight with faith

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom

Complied by Brian Kasaine