“Ambition is a vice, but it may be the father of virtue.”

A man who tries to surpass another may perhaps succeed in equaling in not actually surpassing him, but one who merely follows can never quite come up with him: a follower, necessarily, is always behind.

The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.

There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.

Those who wish to appear learned to fools, appear as fools to the learned.

A religion without mystics is a philosophy.

Nothing can be pleasing which is not also becoming.

(Slaughter) means blood and iron.

For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.

A liar must have a good memory.

The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.

A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.

Lately we have had many losses.

It is the heart which inspires eloquence.

Where evil habits are once settled, they are more easily broken than mended.

The soul languishing in obscurity contracts a kind of rust, or abandons itself to the chimera of presumption; for it is natural for it to acquire something, even when separated from any one.

While we are making up our minds as to when we shall begin. The opportunity is lost.