“The fact is that men who know nothing of decency in their own lives are only too ready to launch foul slanders against their betters and to offer them up as victims to the evil deity of popular envy.”

May I never sit where it is impossible for me to get up and offer my seat to an older man?

To the Dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage.

The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.

Courage consists not in hazarding without fear; but being resolutely minded in a just cause.

Even those virtues that nature had denied him were imitated by him so successfully that he won more confidence than those who actually possessed them.

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.

A mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted.

We ought indeed to shrink from and feel shame at what is base, but nature which is over-cautious to avoid blame may be gentle and kindly, but cannot be great.

All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

Painting is silent poetry.

They insist upon the shaving of the mustache, I think, in order that they may accustom the young men to obedience in the most trifling matters.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely minded in a just cause.

Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.

Those who receive with most pains and difficulty, remember best; every new think they learn, being, as it were, burnt and branded in on their minds.

Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

Evil, as she saw it, need not be committed only by demonic monsters but—with disastrous effect—by morons and imbeciles as well, especially if, as we see in our own day, their deeds are sanctioned by religious authority.

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he just mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

Piety is the most solid goodness, and the vilest of what is evil is vice.

Solitude is better than the society of evil persons.

All evil is corrective and remedial and is therefore not permanent.

To be alone is the fate of all great minds – a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.