We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them.

All the maxims have been written. It only remains to put them into practice.

Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.

How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement!

The greatness of man is so evident that it is even proved by his wretchedness. For what in animals is nature, we call in man wretchedness--by which we recognize that, his nature being now like that of animals, he has fallen from a better nature which once was his.

We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers.