Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Great is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property.

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.

But the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life, that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations perish and are destroyed.

Men are divided between those who are as thrifty as if they would live forever, and those who are as extravagant as if they were going to die the next day.

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

But a man's best friend is the one who not only wishes him well but wishes it for his own sake (even though nobody will ever know it): and this condition is best fulfilled by his attitude towards himself - and similarly with all the other attributes that go to define a friend. For we have said before that all friendly feelings for others are extensions of a man's feelings for himself.