Solon used to say that speech was the image of actions; . . . that laws were like cobwebs, - for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were something weightier, it broke through them and was off.

Boasting, like gilded armour, is very different inside from outside.

I like best the wine drunk at the cost of others.

To arrive at perfection, a man should have very sincere friends or inveterate enemies; because he would be made sensible of his good or ill conduct, either by the censures of the one or the admonitions of the other.

It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.

Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.