Sylvia Plath's Quotes

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

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

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

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

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.

Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

Philosophy is the highest music.

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.

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

Life must be lived as play.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

Necessity... the mother of invention.

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

Democracy passes into despotism.

I shall assume that your silence gives consent.

No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return.

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

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

Courage is a kind of salvation.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

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

Your silence gives consent.

Man - a being in search of meaning.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.

We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

Philosophy begins in wonder.

There is no such thing as a lovers' oath.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

A state arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants.

It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

Knowledge is true opinion.

Science is nothing but perception.

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly.

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

It is right to give every man his due.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.