“Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.”

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.

Silence at the proper season is wisdom and better than any speech.

It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent than the extent of my power or possessions.

Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.

I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.

What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

A pen went scribbling along. When it tried to write love, it broke.

Let silence take you to the core of life.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Don’t judge me by my past. I don’t live there anymore.

Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, nobody really notices; when it’s absent, everybody notices.

The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.