By convention sweet is sweet, by convention bitter is bitter, by convention hot is hot, by convention cold is cold, by convention color is color. But in reality there are atoms and the void. That is, the objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not. Only the atoms and the void are real.

Some men are masters of cities, but are enslaved to women.

Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence.

More men have become great through practice than by nature.

Fortune provides a man's table with luxuries, virtue with only a frugal meal.

These differences, they say, are three: shape, arrangement, and position; because they hold that what is differs only in contour, inter-contact, inclination.

The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.