“To invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is an art worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae.”

How can I study from below, that which is above?

Does it seem that everything is extravagance in the world, or rather madness, when you watch the way things go? A crowd of rogues enjoy blessings they have won by sheer injustice, while more honest folks are miserable and die of hunger.

It should not prejudice my voice that I’m not born a man, if I say something advantageous to the present situation. For I’m taxed too, and as a toll provide men for the nation.

Why, I’d like nothing better than to achieve some bold adventure, worthy of our trip.

You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.

First listen, my friend, and then you may shriek and bluster.

Do not bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age.

A man should be able to stand up under any disaster for his country’s good.

A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.

Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today.

Woman is adept at getting money for herself and will not easily let herself be deceived; she understands deceit too well herself.

To plunder, to lie, to show your arse, are three essentials for climbing high.

Children have a master to teach them, grown-ups have the poets.

Do not take a blind guide.

Open your mind before your mouth.

You possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing.

I have just as many liberal ideas as I have conservative ideas that I argue with myself sometimes.

An argument fatal to the communist theory, is suggested by the fact, that a desire for property is one of the elements of our nature.

Whenever one refuses to admit such a self-evident truth, for instance, as that it is wrong to steal, don’t argue with him-search him; the reason may be found in his pocket.

At a certain age I just stopped arguing. I realized that there was no way [my father] could see, because for him to approve of what I was doing, he would have to have some belief in me as a musician.

No one in the final analysis really fails to become a Christian because of lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God.

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

I just hope that more people will ignore the fatalism of the argument that we are beyond repair. We are not beyond repair. We are never beyond repair.