One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

As nations improve, so do their gods.

He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.

Brevity: To say at once whatever is to be said.

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.

Many intelligent people, when about to write . . . , force on their minds a certain notion about style, just as they screw up their faces when they sit for their portraits.