Symposium

by Plato

medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body,

I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us.

Proto-capitalist thought put into the mouths of those at the top of the hierarchy.

But souls which are pregnant—for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies—conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions?—wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor.

And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form.

For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the wants of my own soul, and busying myself with the concerns of the Athenians; therefore I hold my ears and tear myself away from him.