It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.
And yet the true creator is necessity, which is the mother of invention.
In everything, it is no easy task to find the middle.
Pleasure causes us to do base actions and pain causes us to abstain from doing noble actions.
There is nothing unequal as the equal treatment of unequals.
Men are divided between those who are as thrifty as if they would live forever, and those who are as extravagant as if they were going to die the next day.