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

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.

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

That which is impossible and probable is better than that which is possible and improbable.

Bad men are full of repentance.

The proof that you know something is that you are able to teach it

Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.