I believe that we cannot live better than in seeking to become better, nor more agreeably than having a clear conscience.

I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.

There are two kinds of disease of the soul, vice and ignorance.