In extraordinary events ignorance of their causes produces astonishment.

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.

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

As the scale of the balance must give way to the weight that presses it down, so the mind must of necessity yield to demonstration.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

I am a Roman citizen.

I cheerfully quit from life as if it were an inn, not a home; for Nature has given us a hostelry in which to sojourn, not to abide.