The Republic

Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge;

he ought to have preferred seeming to being.

To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbour's land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war,

Only after many struggles of thought does the individual assert his right as a moral being. In early ages he is not ONE, but one of many, the citizen of a State which is prior to him; and he has no notion of good or evil apart from the law of his country or the creed of his church. And to this type he is constantly tending to revert, whenever the i

Thrasymachus—not right is the interest of the stronger, but right is the necessity of the weaker.

First ethics, then politics—this is the order of ideas to us; the reverse is the order of history.

the just man seeks to gain an advantage over the unjust only, but not over the just, while the unjust would gain an advantage over either.

Why, I replied, what do you want more? 'Only the comforts of life,—sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.' I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice. Then the fine arts must go to work—every

more than human virtue is needed to save a man, and that he only praises justice who is incapable of injustice.