The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.

Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practice.

Themistocles replied that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.

Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.

What All The World Knows Water is the principle, or the element, of things. All things are water.

Seeing the lightest and gayest purple was then most in fashion, he would always wear that which was the nearest black; and he would often go out of doors, after his morning meal, without either shoes or tunic; not that he sought vain-glory from such novelties, but he would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace.

It is the admirer of himself, and not the admirer of virtue, that thinks himself superior to others.