A friend to all is a friend to none.

If the hammer and the shuttle could move themselves, slavery would be unnecessary.

The two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection are that a thing is your own and that it is your only one.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

For suppose that every tool we had could perform its task, either at our bidding or itself perceiving the need, and if-like the statues made by Dædalus or the tripods of Hephæstus, of which the poet says that "self-moved they enter the assembly of the gods" - shuttles in a loom could fly to and fro and a plectrum play a lyre all self-moved, then master-craftsmen would have no need of servants nor masters of slaves.

There is no genius who hasn't a touch of insanity.

The man who is content to live alone is either a beast or a god.