“To win true freeedom you must be a slave to philosophy.”

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

If you don’t know, ask. You will be a fool for the moment, but a wise man for the rest of your life.

What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.

We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

The greatest power of ruling consists in the exercise of self-control.

No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

Many things have fallen only to rise higher.

There is nothing more despicable than an old man who has no other proof than his age to offer of his having lived long in the world.

He who seeks wisdom is a wise man; he who thinks he has found it is mad.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

He who asks with timidity invites a refusal.

You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

No man is entirely free from weakness and imperfection in this life.

How far have we come in man’s long pilgrimage from darkness toward light? Are we nearing the light—a day of freedom and of peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us?

This is the first rule of deception: repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible. The Internet should be an ally of freedom and a gateway to knowledge; in some cases, it is neither.

The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.

The magic of America is that we’re a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.

But, in fact, discipline is the pathway to freedom.

To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.