Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride.

To see every day how people get the name 'genius' just as the wood-lice in the cellar the name 'millipede'-not because they have that many feet, but because most people don't want to count to 14-this has had the result that I don't believe anyone any more without checking.

People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws.

Be attentive, feel nothing in vain, measure and compare: this is the whole law of philosophy.

With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

The book which most deserved to be banned would be a catalog of banned books.