The Philosopher Kings (Thessaly, #2)

by Jo Walton

Perhaps it was true that before Klio explained he just wasn’t capable of understanding. His world had shaped him as badly as mine had shaped me. In a better world, in the City we both wanted to build, we could both have been philosopher kings. Perhaps then we could have loved each other as Plato wanted.

Maia was never a coward; she faced her own responsibility squarely.

Finally Patroklus argued that the people of the Aegean had their own Fate and that we had no right at all to change that, or to judge them for living differently from the way we thought right. “You have described their art. What right have we to impose our ideas of art on them instead? Perhaps they have religions and philosophies that are equally valuable. I’m not arguing in support of Klio, that we don’t know what it’s safe to change. I agree with that, but my point is different. What right have we to judge and to say what is better or worse?”