For one day spent well, and agreeably to your precepts, is preferable to an eternity of error.

In this statement, my Scipio, I build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. And by this definition it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot and indeed this is the most odious of all tyrannies, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and mask of the people.

All men have a feeling, that they would rather you told them a civil lie than give them a point blank refusal.... If you make a promise, the thing is still uncertain, depends on a future day, and concerns but few people; but if you refuse you alienate people to a certainty and at once, and many people too.

You might as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life: for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.

There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

A man has no enemy worse than himself.