“Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.”

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.

It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.

The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.

It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.

The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.