The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.

The man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances.

We are what we repeatedly do... excellence, therefore, isn't just an act, but a habit and life isn't just a series of events, but an ongoing process of self-definition.

In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning of change, and in the second place they should not rely upon the political devices of which I have already spoken invented only to deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

We must not listen to those who advise us 'being men to think human thoughts, and being mortal to think mortal thoughts' but must put on immortality as much as possible and strain every nerve to live according to that best part of us, which, being small in bulk, yet much more in its power and honour surpasses all else.

Wit is educated insolence.