Lap-dogs and blood-hounds enjoy the greatest respect at court; house-dogs and no dogs at all are not even considered.

Since people no longer attend church, theater remains as the only public service, and literature as the only private devotion.

Why I love the ancients so much? Aside from everything else, when I read them, the entire past between them and me unfolds at thesame time. The hearts of how many heroes and poets may have been set on fire by Plutarch's biographies which now inspire me with their own and with borrowed flames!

As youth lives in the future, so the adult lives in the past: No one rightly knows how to live in the present.

Profundity easily turns into dullness and astuteness deteriorates into wit. Be guided by natural common sense and it will accommodate great and small.

Disregard for the consequences and for right and wrong nowadays passes as energy.

People of talent resemble a musical instrument more closely than they do a musician. Without outside help, they produce not a single sound, but given even the slightest touch, and a magnificent tune emanates from them.