“This precept descended from Heaven: know thyself.”

Dare to do things worthy of imprisonment if you mean to be of consequence.

Now we suffer the evils of a long peace; luxury more cruel than war broods over us and avenges a conquered world.

Bad men hate sin through fear of punishment; good men hate sin through their love of virtue.

If you are capable of submitting to insult you ought to be insulted.

Writing in the incurable itch that possesses many.

Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shining qualities beneath a rough exterior.

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.

It is but the weak and little mind that rejoices in revenge

The wise man sets bounds even to his innocent desires.

Whenever fortune wishes to joke, she lifts people from what is humble to the highest extremity of affairs.

In the present state of the world it is difficult not to write lampoons.

Many a man has met death from the rushing flood of his own eloquence; others from the strength and wondrous thews in which they have trusted.

Honesty is admired, and starves.

Today there’s more fellowship among snakes than among mankind. Wild beasts spare those with similar markings.

So Nature ordains; no evil example corrupts us so soon and so rapidly as one that has been set at home, since it comes into the mind on high authority.

The tongue is the vile slave’s vilest part.

I think my dad is the only Arabic descendent who is an unsuccessful businessman.

Some folks seem to have descended from the chimpanzee much later than others.

I am descended from a very long line my mother once foolishly listened to.

Every single one of us is the descendant of a go-getter. Of dreamers and of believers.

Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It’s a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.

But within these spheres … another authority rules, an authority that descends directly from God apart from the state. This authority the state does not confer but acknowledges.

Ah, yet, e’er I descend to th’ grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true

The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.