History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.

The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.

The more you know, the less sure you are.

If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero.

Men who have seen life and death... as an unbroken continuum, the swinging pendulum, have been able to move as freely into death as they walked through life. Socrates went to the grave almost perplexed by his companions' tears.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.