Plato 
(Greek author & philosopher in Athens (427 BC - 347 BC)

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

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

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.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

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.

The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Democracy passes into despotism.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

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.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

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

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

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

Your silence gives consent.