The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine.

Socrates ... brought human wisdom back down from heaven, where she was wasting her time, and restored her to man.... It is impossible to go back further and lower. He did a great favor to human nature by showing how much it can do by itself.

The archer who overshoots his mark does no better than he who falls short of it.

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.

Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.

We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions; we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.

A straight oar looks bent in the water. It matters not merely that we see a thing, but how we see it.