It is better to be wise, and not to seem so, than to seem wise, and not be so; yet men, for the most part, desire the contrary.

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity.

I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that the only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom.

An old man is twice a child, and so is a drunken man.

It is fear and terror that make all men brave, except the philosophers. Yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice.

... for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.

But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily?