Quotes

Arent these reasons, Glaucon, that education in music and poetry is most important? First,
because rhythm and harmony permeate the inner part of the soul more than anything else, affecting
it most strongly, and bringing it grace, so that if someone is properly educated in music and poetry,
it makes him graceful, but if not, then the opposite. Second, because anyone who has been properly
educated in music and poetry will sense it acutely when something has been omitted from a thing
and when it hasnt been finely crafted or finely made by nature. And since he has the right distastes,
hell praise fine things, be pleased by them, receive them into his soul, and, being nurtured by them,
become fine and good.
-Plato, The Republic, 401d

But the right kind of love is by nature the love of order and beauty that has been moderated by
education in music and poetry
-Plato, The Republic, 403a

This power in the soul, then, this unfailing conservation of right and lawful belief about things to
be and not to be feared is what I call and would assume to be courage
-Plato, The Republic, 430b

Because, unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in one part, making the city brave and
wise respectively, moderation spreads throughout the whole. It makes the weakest, the strongest,
and those in between ... all sing the same song together.
-Plato, The Republic, 431e

A thing, then, that in its contribution to the excellence of a state vies with and rivals its wisdom, its
soberness, its bravery, is this principle of everyone in it doing his own task.
-Plato, The Republic, 433d

But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination
of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.
-Aristotle, Politics (1253a, 37-39)

Just action is intermediate between acting unjustly and being unjustly treated; for the one is to have
too much and the other to have too little. Justice is a kind of mean, but not in the same way as the
other virtues, but because it relates to an intermediate amount, while injustice relates to the
extremes. And justice is that in virtue of which the just man is said to be a doer, by choice, of that
which is just, and one who will distribute either between himself and another or between two others
not so as to give more of what is desirable to himself and less to his neighbor ... but so as to give
what is equal in accordance with proportion; and similarly in distributing between two other
persons.
-Aristotle, Ethics (1133b-1134a, 31-7)

Justice exists only between men whose mutual relations are governed by law; and law exists for
men between whom there is injustice; for legal justice is the discrimination of the just and unjust
-Aristotle, Ethics (1134a, 29-32)


Justice is essentially something human
-Aristotle, Ethics (1137a, 30-31)

The salvation of the community is the common business of all citizens. This community is the
constitution; the virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a
member.
-Aristotle, Politics (1276b, 28-31)

The student of politics, then, must study the soul
-Aristotle, Ethics (1102a, 22)

Justice is a souls virtue, and injustice its vice.
-Plato, The Republic, 352e

Nature is forced by law into perversion of treating fairness with respect.
-Plato, The Republic, 359c

Philosophy, spirit, speed, and strength must all ... be combined in the nature of anyone who is to be
a fine and good guardian of our city
-Plato, The Republic, 376c

For false Fortune has played a game
of chess with me, alas the while!
The traitor false and full of guile
That all promises and nothing held
She goes upright and yet she halt,
That squints foul and looks fair
The disdainful debonair
That scorns many a creature!
An idol of false portrayal
Is she, for she will soon turn away
She is the monsters head covered away
As filth strewn with flowers
Her most worship and her flower is
To lie, for that is her nature;
Without faith, law, or measure
She is false, and ever laughing
With one eye, and that other weeping.
That is brought up she set all down.
I liken her to the scorpion,
That is a false, flattering beast,
For with his head he makes feast
But all amid his flattering
With his tail he will sting
And envenom; and so will she.
-Chaucer, The Book of the Duchess (618-641)


Though was I aware where that there sat a queen
That, as of light the summer sun shown
Passeth the stars, right so over measure
She fairer was than any creature
-Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls (298-301)

Hamlet: Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not seems.
Tis not alone my inky clock, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play,
But I have that within which passes show
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet (I.2.76-86)

Hamlet: O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie ont, ah, fie, tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely...
-Shakespeare, Hamlet (I.2.132-137)

Criseyde was this lady name al right.
As to my doom, in al Troies cite
Nas non so fair, forpassynge every wight,
So aungelik was hir natif beaute,
That like a thing inmortal semed she,
As dothan hevenyssh perfit creature,
That down were sent in scornynge of nature.

Cressida was the name this lady owned:
and to my mind, in all of Troys city
none was as fair, surpassing everyone.
So angelic was her native beauty,
that like a thing immortal seemed she,
as does a heavenly and perfect creature
sent down here to put to shame our nature.
-Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (1.99-105)


Kingdoms governed at the discretion and pleasure of the king alone are not governments of men
who are free and have the light of reason, but rather of sheep and brute beasts who have no
judgment.
Aristotle, Politics

Polonius: When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows...
-Shakespeare, Hamlet (I.3.115-116).

Polonius: Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth,
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet (II.1.62-65).

Hamlet: Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be
One man picked out of ten thousand.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet, (II.2.178-179).

Polonius: ...What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
-Shakespeare, Hamlet, (II.2.191-194).

Hamlet: I will tell you why. So shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen molt no feather. I have of late but where-
fore I know not lost all my mirth, forgone all custom
of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my dis-
position that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a
sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air,
look you, this brave oerhanging firmament, this majes-
tical roof fretted with golden fire why, it appeareth
nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of
vapors. What piece of work is a man, how noble in rea-
son, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how
express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in
apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world,
the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this
quintessence of dust? Man delights not me nor
woman neither...
-Shakespeare, Hamlet, (II.2.263-279).

Player: Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod take away her power,
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet, (II.2.433-437).

Hamlet: ...Good my lord, will you see the players well be-
stowed? Do you hear? Let them be well used, for they
are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After
your [Poloniuss] death you were better have a bad epitaph than
their ill report while you live.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet, (II.2.462-466).

...O crueel goddes that governe
This world with byndyng of youre word eterne
And writen in the table of atthamaunt
Youre parlement and youre eterne graunt,
What is mankynde moore unto you holde
Than is the sheep that rouketh in the folde?
For slayn is man right as another beest
And dwelleth eek in prison and arreest,
And hath siknesse and greet adversitee,
And ofte tymes giltelees, pardee.
What governance is in this prescience,
That giltelees tormenteth innocence?
And et encresseth this al my penaunce,
That man is bounden to his observaunce,
For Goddes sake, to letten of his wille,
Ther as a beest may al his lust fulfille.
And whan a beest is deed he hath no payne;
But man after his deeth moot wepe and playne.
Though in this world he have care and wo.
Withouten doute it may stonden so.
The answere of this lete I to dyvynys,
But wel I woot that in this world greet pyne ys.
-Chaucer, The Caterbury Tales (Knights Tale.1303-1324).

The destinee, ministre general,
The destiny, general minister,
That executeth in the world over al
That executes in the world everywhere
The purveiaunce that God hath seyn biforn,
The providence that God has foreseen,
So strong it is that, though the world had sworn
So strong it is that, though the world had sworn
The contrarie of a thyng by ye or nay,
The contrary of a thing by yes or no,
Yet somtyme it shal fallen on a day
Yet sometimes it shall happen on one day
That falleth nat eft withinne a thousand yeer.
That happens not again in a thousand years.
For certeinly, oure appetites heer,
For certainly, our desires here,
Be it of werre, or pees, or hate, or love,
Be it of war, or peace, or hate, or love,
Al is this reuled by the sighte above.
All this is ruled by the foresight above.
-Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (KT.1663-1672).

When black clouds envelop
Stars which shone bright,
They can no longer
Pour forth their light.

If the stormy south wind,
Assaulting the sea,
Stirs up the salt-surge,
The waves that lay free
And were glassy, encalmed
As unclouded days,
Are fouled with dredged mud
And opaque to our gaze.

Rocks torn from high crags
Oft stem a stream's force
As it pours down the mountains
In wandering course.

Your case is like these.
If you wish to behold
The truth in clear light,
And to make the straight road,
Forgo empty joys,
Dismiss every fear,
Renounce idle hope,
Let grief come not near.

The mind is befogged,
Imprisoned in chains,
When emotions like these
Wield monarchical reins.'

- Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy (Book I, Chapter 7).

One who seeks fame, and nought but fame, with fierce intent,
And thinks it of the utmost worth,
Should train his eyes upon the boundless firmament
Then contemplate this puny earth.

He will feel chagrin that his wide celebrity
Such narrow precincts fail to fill
Why vainly seek, proud souls, to cheat mortality,
Whose yoke your necks belabours still?

Although your glory through far distant nations goes,
Where mens tongues celebrate your name,
And though your noble house with signal honors glows,
Still, death despises such high fame.

Death lumps together lowly and high-born as one;
She ranks the highest with the base.
Where are the bones of trusty Fabricius now gone?
Brutus, stern Cato have no place.

The meager glory that outlives man marks you down
As ciphers, in few letters read,
Does bear acquaintance with illustrious names alone
Impart real knowledge of the dead?

So you men all lie buried, doomed to be unknown;
No glory celebrates your name.
Should you believe extended life will surely dawn
Through tidings of your earthly fame,
Mere lapse of time this expectation will dethrone.
A second death waits you to claim.

- Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy (Book II, Chapter 7).

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have ligthed fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Lifes but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

-William Shakespeare, Macbeth (V.v.22-31).