To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

If you prove the cause, you at once prove the effect; and conversely nothing can exist without its cause.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail.

A gentleman is not disturbed by anything

Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile?