Men must be able to engage in business and go to war, but leisure and peace are better; they must do what is necessary and indeed what is useful, but what is honorable is better. On such principles children and persons of every age which requires education should be trained.

No man of high and generous spirit is ever willing to indulge in flattery; the good may feel affection for others, but will not flatter them.

Where the laws are not supreme, there demagogues spring up.

Nature herself, as has been often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end.

We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.

[I]t is rather the case that we desire something because we believe it to be good than that we believe a thing to be good because we desire it. It is the thought that starts things off.

Art completes what nature cannot bring to finish. The artist gives us knowledge of nature's unrealized ends.