Demetrius was wont to say that there was no difference between the words and speech of the unskilled and ignorant and the sounds and rumblings caused by the stomach being full of superfluous wind. This he said, not without reason, for, as he held, it did not in the least matter from what part of them the voice emanated, whether from the lower parts or the mouth, since the one and the other were of equal worth and importance.

Of several bodies, all equally large and equally distant, that which is most brightly illuminated will appear to the eye nearest and largest.

He turns not back who is bound to a star.

Advertisers constantly invent cures to which there is no disease.

The fox when it sees a flock of herons or magpies or birds of that kind, suddenly flings himself on the ground with his mouth open to look as he were dead; and these birds want to peck at his tongue, and he bites off their heads.

Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.