Quotes

"In a properly ordered soul no one desire is allowed to dominate the rest, or to prejudice the well-being of the whole, since, tamed by reason, the various desires have learnt to stand back and refrain from interfering with one another's satisfaction. Thus, the reasonable man, precisely because he is dominated by reason, is also a satisfied man. Plato transfers his conclusion from the stage of the soul to that of the State. Ordinary people, as we have seen, are those in whom the third part of the soul is predominant. Left to themselves, they are not capable of philosophy; they do not, that is to say, strive to know the principles of reality, they have little wisdom and are concerned only to satisfy their desires. It is for this reason that they crave money and power. The life of the ordinary man is forever restless and discontented, unless he finds some positive reason for contentment. And so he tries to discover positive reasons, in women or in wine, in sport or in competitions, or even in war, and in the pursuit of these will strive with this fellows. Such, too, is the condition of democracy, the condition of free competition, in which every man is as good as his neighbor...and equally entitled with him both to govern and to be satisfied. Finding the resultant insecurity intolerable, democracies tend to to develop into tyrannies, an absolute ruler being appointed to put an end to competition and party strife and to discipline the people for their own good and for the good of the community."