It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will" owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it.

Death. The certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity- and now you strange apothecary souls have turned it into an ill-tasting drop of poison that makes the whole of life repulsive.

Only great pain is, as the teacher of great suspicion, the ultimate liberator of the spirit...I doubt whether such pain improves us-but I do know it deepens us.

My time has not yet come either; some are born posthumously.

Every virtue has its privilege: for example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of one condemned.

But eternal liveliness is what counts: what does "eternal life" matter, or life at all?

As a human being Plato mingles regal, exclusive, and self-contained features with melancholy compassion.