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.

As a breath of wind or some echo rebounds from smooth, hard surfaces and returns to the source from which it issued, so the stream of beauty passes back into its possessor through his eyes, which is its natural route to the soul; arriving there and setting him all aflutter, it waters the passages of the feathers and causes the wings to grow, and fills the soul of the loved one in his turn with love.

Aspiring minds must sometimes sustain loss.

Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

Courage is a kind of salvation.

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

Philosophy is the highest music.