“Unless a variety of opinions are laid before us, we have no opportunity of selection, but are bound of necessity to adopt the particular view which may have been brought forward.”

In soft regions are born soft men.

He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.

Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans; those who are rash and precipitate seldom enjoy the favour of the gods.

But if you know that you are a man too, and that even such are those that rule, learn this first of all: that all human affairs are a wheel which, as it turns, does not allow the same men always to be fortunate.

I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

Call no man happy before he dies.

The sun will not shine on any country that has borders with ours.

It is a law of nature that fainthearted men should be the fruit of luxurious countries, for we never find that the same soil produces delicacies and heroes.

One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end.

History is marked by alternating movements across the imaginary line that separates East from West in Eurasia.

Envy is so natural to human kind, that it cannot but arise.

If you have two loaves of bread, keep one to nourish the body, but sell the other to buy hyacinths for the soul.

Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty.

A multitude of rulers is not a good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king.

Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.

Some give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.

Life is so brief and time is a thief when you’re undecided.

The great moments of life are but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes; a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lips though they cannot speak.

I believe that the time has arrived for medical investigation of the problems of manned rocket flight, for it will not be the engineering problems but rather the limits of the human frame that will make the final decision as to whether manned space flight will eventually become a reality.

Do things as soon as you can. If a decision needs to be made, make it. It gives you more time to change your mind.

Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak.

There is no real direction here, neither lines of power nor cooperation. Decisions are never really made – at best they manage to emerge, from a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all around assholery.

Ever dumb thing I ever done in my life there was a decision I made before that got me into it. It was never the dumb thing. It was always some choice I’d made before it.

The only people who have quick answers don’t have the responsibility of making the decisions.