We always believe God is like ourselves, the indulgent think him indulgent and the stern, terrible.

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the passions pure, makes them stronger, more durable, and more enjoyable.

When my friends lack an eye, I look at them in profile.

Xenophon wrote with a swan's quill, Plato with a pen of gold, and Thucydides with a brazen stylus.

Old age was naturally more honored in times when people could not know much more than what they had seen.

There are those to whom one must advise madness.

The sound of the drum drives out thought; for that very reason it is the most military of instruments.