Nothing is more unworthy of a wise man, or ought to trouble him more, than to have allowed more time for trifling, and useless things, than they deserve.

Let us describe the education of our men. What then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.

There's a victory and defeat-the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats-which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites.

So their combinations with themselves and with each other give rise to endless complexities, which anyone who is to give a likely account of reality must survey.

The first and the best victory is to conquer self.

The fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown.