The gardener plants trees, not one berry of which he will ever see: and shall not a public man plant laws, institutions, government, in short, under the same conditions?

No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.

No one has lived a short life who has performed its duties with unblemished character.

For out of such an ungoverned populace one is usually chosen as a leader, someone bold and unscrupulous who curries favor with the people by giving them other men's property. To such a man the protection of public office is given, and continually renewed. He emerges as a tyrant over the very people who raised him to power.

There is in superstition a senseless fear of God.

Favours out of place I regard as positive injuries.

Nor am I ashamed, as some are, to confess my ignorance of those matters with which I am unacquainted.