When trying a case [the famous judge] L. Cassius never failed to inquire "Who gained by it?" Man's character is such that no one undertakes crimes without hope of gain.

Friendship makes prosperity more brilliant, and lightens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.

Learning is a kind of natural food for the mind.

Let reason govern desire.

. . . for until that God who rules all the region of the sky . . . has freed you from the fetters of your body, you cannot gain admission here. Men were created with the understanding that they were to look after that sphere called Earth, which you see in the middle of the temple. Minds have been given to them out of the eternal fires you call fixed stars and planets, those spherical solids which, quickened with divine minds, journey through their circuits and orbits with amazing speed.

What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?