Caleb Simpson

“And we must remember further that we are speaking of the education, not of a trainer, or of the captain of a ship, but of a perfect citizen who knows how to rule and how to obey; and such an education aims at virtue, and not at wealth or strength or mere cleverness. To the good man, education is of all things the most precious, and is also in constant need of renovation. 'We agree.' And we have before agreed that good men are those who are able to control themselves, and bad men are those who are not. Let me offer you an illustration which will assist our argument. Man is one; but in one and the same man are two foolish counsellors who contend within him—pleasure and pain, and of either he has expectations which we call hope and fear; and he is able to reason about good and evil, and reason, when affirmed by the state, becomes law.”
― Plato, Laws

“More likely, he would die before ever getting it. But he wanted to survive—that urge was part of his programming. It was what defined him as human-equivalent and therefore deserving autonomy. The bot had no choice but to fight for his life. Still, to Paladin, it didn’t feel like a lack of choice. It felt like hope.”
― Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

“Even before her brain processes all that, she gasps. He says, “You are Dr. Mensah, aren’t you.” It’s not a question. He knows exactly who she is. She takes a step back and bumps into someone’s chest. Before she can panic, the words are in her feed: It’s me. It’s Murderbot — SecUnit — who was monitoring her feed or watching on a surreptitiously installed camera or had simply heard her gasp from down the corridor and through a room full of conversation.”
― Martha Wells, Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

“He who has the divine has the human added to him; but he who has lost the greater is deprived of both. The lesser goods are health, beauty, strength, and, lastly, wealth; not the blind God, Pluto, but one who has eyes to see and follow wisdom. For mind or wisdom is the most divine of all goods; and next comes temperance, and justice springs from the union of wisdom and temperance with courage, which is the fourth or last. These four precede other goods, and the legislator will arrange all his ordinances accordingly, the human going back to the divine, and the divine to their leader mind.”
― Plato, Laws