“Men who neglect philosophy while busying themselves with ordinary affairs are like the Suitors [in the Odyssey] who desired Penelope but went to bed with her maids.”

Man and woman and speech and deed and city and object should be honored with praise if praiseworthy and incur blame if unworthy, for it is an equal error and mistake to blame the praisable and to praise the blamable.

Nothing exists; even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can’t be communicated to others.

I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust.

Being is unrecognizable unless it manages to seem, and seeming is feeble unless it manages to be.

The man who deceives shows more justice than he who does not.

Speech is a powerful master and achieves the most divine feats with the smallest and least evident body. It can stop fear, relieve pain, create joy, and increase pity.

By ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Americans every day against abuse of power by those in authority.

It may be normal, darling; but I’d rather be natural.

It’s amazing how lovely common things become, if one only knows how to look at them.

I believe that most successful people are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.

Don’t let them make you feel as if you are ordinary.

I still live as normal a life as anybody else. I have two homes to run. I have my staff to take care of. I work, pay bills and attend society meetings like everybody else.

It is not special to be special, it’s special to be ordinary.

My life may seem glamorous from the outside but off screen it’s as ordinary as anyone else’s.