Nothing in oratory is more important than to win for the orator the favour of his hearer, and to have the latter so affected as to be swayed by something resembling an impulse of the spirit impetu quodam animi or emotion perturbatione, rather than by judgment or deliberation. For men decide far more problems by hate, or love, or lust, or rage, or sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or illusion, or some other inward emotion aliqua permotione mentis, than by reality or authority, or any legal standard, or judicial precedent or statute.

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?

In everything satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.

That which is not forbidden, is not on that account permitted.

No sensible man ever imputes inconsistency to another for changing his minds.

Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.

A friend is, as it were, a second self.