"To find yourself, think for yourself."

"I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort."

"I am a gadfly who God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching all of you."

"For I do believe that I have been sent by God to the city as a gadfly to a great and noble horse which is rather sluggish because of its size and needs to be stirred up by a gadfly."

"But those who obey the rulers it reviles as willing slaves and men of naught, but it commends and honors in public and private rulers who resemble subjects and subjects who are like rulers. Is it not …"