How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments.

The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

There is no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally.

Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.

No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.

The wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can.