For what are we but our past? If that is lost, we become nothing.

The evil done by men of goodwill is the worst of all ... We have done terrible things, for the best of reasons, and that makes it worse.

Every cataclysm is welcomed by somebody; there is always someone to rejoice at disaster and see in it the prospect of a new beginning and a better world.

Action is the activity of the rational soul, which abhors irrationality and must combat it or be corrupted by it. When it sees the irrationality of others, it must seek to correct it, and can do this either by teaching or engaging in public affairs itself, correcting through its practice. And the purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone, they become no more than beasts.

Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless.

For men are held above their fellows by the gossamer of reputation, which is so soft and fragile a breath can blow it away.

He who profits by villainy, has perpetrated it.