He who without the Muse's madness in his soul comes knocking at the door of poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be called a poet, finds that the poetry which he indites in his sober senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen.

Necessity is literally the mother of invention.

No man's nature is able to know what is best for the social state of man; or, knowing, always able to do what is best.

Knowledge of the soul is the only universal truth and the only wisdom - all other knowledge is transient.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

Music is moral law. It is the essence of order and leads to all that is good, true and beautiful.