Why is it that all men who are outstanding in philosophy, poetry or the arts are melancholic?

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

Being a father is the most rewarding thing a man whose career has plateaued can do.

At first he who invented any art that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to its recreation, the inventors of the latter were always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility.

Women should marry when they are about eighteen years of age, and men at seven and thirty; then they are in the prime of life, and the decline in the powers of both will coincide.

It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.

The gods too are fond of a joke.