All men seek esteem; the best by lifting themselves, which is hard to do, the rest by shoving others down, which is much easier.

To hate excellence is to hate the gods.

Change is the sum of the universe, and what is of nature ought not to be feared. But one gives it hostages, and lays one's grief upon the gods. Sokrates is free, and would have taught me freedom. But I have yoked the immortal horse that draws the chariot with a horse of earth; and when the one falls, both are entangled in the traces.

There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.

One might have supposed that the true act of love was to lie together and talk.

Money buys many things... The best of which is freedom.

What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence; the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?