Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.

Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.

I decline to buy repentance at the cost of ten thousand drachmas.

Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who are from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts, but brothers, not rivals, but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence...The difference... is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging.

The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.

Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.