There are three qualifications required in those who have to fill the highest offices, - (1) first of all, loyalty to the established constitution; (2) the greatest administrative capacity; (3) virtue and justice of the kind proper to each form of government.

It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.

In painting, the most brilliant colors, spread at random and without design, will give far less pleasure than the simplest outline of a figure.

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.

We must as second best, as people say, take the least of the evils.

In the many forms of government which have sprung up there has always been an acknowledgement of justice and proportionate equality, although mankind fail in attaining them, as indeed I have already explained. Democracy, for example, arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.