I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is.

And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "I have found it! Eureka!".

We ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household belongings, which when worn with use we throw away.

We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against nature.

The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.

Rome was in the most dangerous inclination to change on account of the unequal distribution of wealth and property, those of highest rank and greatest spirit having impoverished themselves by shows, entertainments, ambition of offices, and sumptuous buildings, and the riches of the city having thus fallen into the hands of mean and low-born persons. So that there wanted but a slight impetus to set all in motion, it being in the power of every daring man to overturn a sickly commonwealth.

For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.