"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."

"I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man..."

"Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat."

"Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people."

"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."

"Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one."

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."

"Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the world, so outstanding in both intelligence and power, aren't you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you can, and to advance your reputation and prestige--while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry?"

"It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one."

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."