How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms

No one chooses what does not rest with himself, but only what he thinks can be attained by his own act.

Democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy. For in oligarchies there is the double danger of the oligarchs falling out among themselves and also with the people; but in democracies there is only the danger of a quarrel with the oligarchs. No dissension worth mentioning arises among the people themselves. And we may further remark that a government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.

The virtue as the art consecrates itself constantly to what's difficult to do, and the harder the task, the shinier the success.

For often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.

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

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.