The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

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.

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

Education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the best of our elders has agreed to be truly right.

Love is a serious mental disease.

Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth... and to the maximum of power, I exhort all other men to do the same.