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.

When the thing taken into union is perfectly adapted to that which receives it, the result is delight and pleasure and satisfaction.

Men born in hot countries love the night because it refreshes them and have a horror of light because it burns them.

But to me all sciences seem vain and full of error that are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, and do not terminate in an actual experience.

Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and attacks it; and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain behind.

I am still hopeful. A falcon, Time. But the coincidence is probably accidental.

You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself...the height of a man's success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. ...And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.