He shall be honoured with sacrifices, and receive such worship as the Pythian oracle approves.
'You are a statuary, Socrates, and have made a perfect image of our governors.' Yes, and of our governesses, for the women will share in all things with the men.

And you will admit that our State is not a mere aspiration, but may really come into being when there shall arise philosopher-kings, one or more, who will despise earthly vanities, and will be the servants of justice only.

'And how will they begin their work ?' Their first act will be to send away into the country all those who are more than ten years of age, and to proceed with those who are left...
At the commencement of the sixth book, Plato anticipated his explanation of the relation of the philosopher to the world in an allegory, in this, as in other passages, following the order which he prescribes in education, and proceeding from the concrete to the abstract.

At the commencement of Book VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening towards a fire and a way upwards to the true light, he returns to view the divisions of knowledge, exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the result which had been hardly won by a great effort of thought in the previous discussion; at the same time casting a glance onward at the dialectical process, which is represented by the way leading from darkness to light.

The shadows, the images, the reflection of the sun and stars in the water, the stars and sun themselves, severally correspond,--the first, to the realm of fancy and poetry,--the second, to the world of sense,--the third, to the abstractions or universals of sense, of which the mathematical sciences furnish the type,--the fourth and last to the same abstractions, when seen in the unity of the idea, from which they derive a new meaning and power.