Tell a man what he may not sing and he is still half free; even all free, if he never wanted to sing it. But tell him what he must sing, take up his time with it so that his true voice cannot sound even in secret -- there, I have seen is slavery.

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?

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.

By her shining and her power he knew her.

We Persians have a saying that one should deliberate serious matters first drunk, then sober.

Tell a man what he may not sing and he is still half free; even all free, if he never wanted to sing it. But tell him what he must sing, take up his time with it so that his true voice cannot sound even in secret -- there, I have seen is slavery.

It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies.