In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.

Even that some people try deceived me many times ... I will not fail to believe that somewhere, someone deserves my trust.

The government of freemen is nobler and implies more virtue than despotic government. Neither is a city to be deemed happy or a legislator to be praised because he trains his citizens to conquer and obtain dominion over their neighbors, for there is great evil in this.

For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

A vivid image compels the whole body to follow.

It is the active exercise of our faculties in conformity with virtue that causes happiness, and the opposite activities its opposite.