Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.

It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.

We should aim rather at leveling down our desires than leveling up our means.

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

That which is excellent endures.

The sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth. This, as we have said before, is the regular course of nature.

Of the irrational part of the soul again one division appears to be common to all living things, and of a vegetative nature.