It seems that ambition makes most people wish to be loved rather than to love others.

Temperance and bravery, then, are ruined by excess and deficiency, but preserved by the mean.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people, and making them incapable of decisive action.

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.