Revolutions are effected in two ways, by force and by fraud.

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

Talent is culture with insolence.

The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy.

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.

Metaphor is halfway between the unintelligible and the commonplace.

Try is a noisy way of doing nothing.