You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.

Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another.

The majority of the common people loathe war and pray for peace; only a handful of individuals, whose evil joys depend on general misery, desire war.

The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.

This type of man who is devoted to the study of wisdom is always most unlucky in everything, and particularly when it comes to procreating children; I imagine this is because Nature wants to ensure that the evils of wisdom shall not spread further throughout mankind.

'Tis an easier matter to raise the devil than to lay him.

For them it's out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time; to shed tears is weak and womanish, to be needy is degrading; to suffer defeat is a disgrace and hardly fitting for one who scarcely permits the greatest of kings to kiss the toes of his sacred feet; and finally, death is an unattractive prospect, and dying on a cross would be an ignominious end.