Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.

No man of high and generous spirit is ever willing to indulge in flattery; the good may feel affection for others, but will not flatter them.

For even they who compose treatises of medicine or natural philosophy in verse are denominated Poets: yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except their metre; the former, therefore, justly merits the name of the Poet; while the other should rather be called a Physiologist than a Poet.

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 greatest threat to the state is not faction but distraction

Happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.

There is nothing strange in the circle being the origin of any and every marvel.