Happiness may be defined as good fortune joined to virtue, or a independence, or as a life that is both agreeable and secure.

In part, art completes what nature cannot elaborate; and in part it imitates nature.

In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.

Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot.

Of old, the demagogue was also a general, and then democracies changed into tyrannies. Most of the ancient tyrants were originally demagogues. They are not so now, but they were then; and the reason is that they were generals and not orators, for oratory had not yet come into fashion.

A gentleman is not disturbed by anything

For what is the best choice for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.