We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure, just as we go to war in order that we may have peace.

No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.

The purpose of art is to represent the meaning of things. This represents the true reality, not external aspects.

There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.

...the life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for.

In [the soul] one part naturally rules, and the other is subject, and the virtue of the ruler we maintain to be different from that of the subject; the one being the virtue of the rational, and the other of the irrational part. Now, it is obvious that the same principle applies generally, and therefore almost all things rule and are ruled according to nature.