Watch a man at play for an hour and you can learn more about him than in talking to him for a year.

Access to power must be confined to those who are not in love with it.

The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians because they are ignorant of the whole... For the part can never be well unless the whole is well.

Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.

He who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.

Thus does the Muse herself move men divinely inspired, and through them thus inspired a Chain hangs together of others inspired divinely likewise.