There are three things that are the motives of choice and three that are the motives of avoidance; namely, the noble, the expedient, and the pleasant, and their opposites, the base, the harmful, and the painful. Now in respect of all these the good man is likely to go right and the bad to go wrong, but especially in respect of pleasure; for pleasure is common to man with the lower animals, and also it is a concomitant of all the objects of choice, since both the noble and the expedient appear to us pleasant.

The greatest victory is over self.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the mere fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong.

Marriage is like retiring as a bachelor and getting a sexual pension. You don't have to work for the sex any more, but you only get 65% as much.

. . . the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's.

All flatterers are mercenary, and all low-minded men are flatterers.