It Was Through The Feeling Of Wonder

Youth Should Be Kept Strangers To All That Is Bad, And Especially To Things Which Suggest Vice Or Hate. When The Five Years Have Passed Away, During The Two Following Years They Must Look On At The Pursuits Which They Are Hereafter To Learn. There Are Two Periods Of Life With Reference To Which Education Has To Be Divided, From Seven To The Age Of Puberty, And Onwards To The Age Of One And Twenty.

Since The Branch Of Philosophy On Which We Are At Present Engaged Differs From The Others In Not Being A Subject Of Merely Intellectual Interest — I Mean We Are Not Concerned To Know What Goodness Essentially Is, But How We Are To Become Good Men, For This Alone Gives The Study Its Practical Value — We Must Apply Our Minds To The Solution Of The Problems Of Conduct.

We Do Not Act Rightly Because We Have Virtue Or Excellence. But They Hesitate, Waiting For The Other Fellow To Make The First Move-and He, In Turn, Waits For You.

Yet The True Friend Of The People Should See That They Be Not Too Poor, For Extreme Povery Lowers The Character Of The Democracy; Measures Therefore Should Be Taken Which Will Give Them Lasting Prosperity; And As This Is Equally The Interest Of All Classes, The Proceeds Of The Public Revenues Should Be Accumulated And Distributed Among Its Poor, If Possible, In Such Quantities As May Enable Them To Purchase A Little Farm, Or, At Any Rate, Make A Beginning In Trade Or Husbandry.

Just As A Royal Rule, If Not A Mere Name, Must Exist By Virtue Of Some Great Personal Superiority In The King, So Tyranny, Which Is The Worst Of Governments, Is Necessarily The Farthest Removed From A Well-constituted Form; Oligarchy Is Little Better, For It Is A Long Way From Aristocracy, And Democracy Is The Most Tolerable Of The Three.