Like tourists huffing and puffing to reach the peak we forget the view on the way up.

They climb the mountain like beasts, stupid and sweating; it seems that no one bothered to tell them that there are beautiful vistas along the way.

Some are made modest by great praise, others insolent.

I love him who maketh his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.

So long as the spectator has to figure out the meaning of this or that person, or the presuppositions of this or that conflict of inclinations and purposes, he cannot become completely absorbed in the activities and sufferings of the chief characters or feel breathless pity and fear.

Some people appear to be more meager in talent than they are, just because the tasks they set themselves are always too great.

The charm of the Platonic mode of thought ... consisted precisely in the resistance to the obvious evidence of the senses.