The best The Republic quotes |

Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark.

Justice is practiced only under compulsion, as someone else's good - not our own.

Variety in poetry breeds self-indulgence; in gymnastics, disease: simplicity there puts temperance in the soul; here it puts health in the body.

The result, then, is that more plentiful and better-quality goods are more easily produced if each person does one thing for which he is naturally suited, does it at the right time, and is released from having to do any of the others.