War is an evil thing; but to submit to the dictation of other states is worse.... Freedom, if we hold fast to it, will ultimately restore our losses, but submission will mean permanent loss of all that we value.... To you who call yourselves men of peace, I say: You are not safe unless you have men of action on your side.

The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.

In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.

Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which all can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required

... Athenians are addicted to innovation. They are daring beyond their judgment they toil on with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting, they were born into the world to take no rest themselves, and to give none to others.

I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usaully goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of mind.

I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time