.. for desire is like a wild beast, and anger perverts rulers and the very best of men. Hence law is intelligence without appetition.

In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.

For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also it is the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity.

People generally despise where they flatter.

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Rightness in our choice of an end is secured by [Moral] Virtue.