Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

God and nature create nothing that does not fulfill a purpose

Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.

In the perfect state the good man is absolutely the same as the good citizen; whereas in other states the good citizen is only good relatively to his own form of government.

We ought not to listen to those who exhort us, because we are human, to think of human things....We ought rather to take on immortality as much as possible, and do all that we can to live in accordance with the highest element within us; for even if its bulk is small, in its power and value it far exceeds everything.

A democracy when put to the strain grows weak, and is supplanted by Oligarchy.