“Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away. A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him.”

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.

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

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

There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.

I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.

The philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Time is the moving image of reality.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.

The first and best victory is to conquer self.

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

Man is a being in search of meaning.