The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

The eyes of some persons are large, others small, and others of a moderate size; the last-mentioned are the best. And some eyes are projecting, some deep-set, and some moderate, and those which are deep-set have the most acute vision in all animals; the middle position is a sign of the best disposition.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Wit is educated insolence.

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Hope is a waking dream.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

Friendship is essentially a partnership.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.

The secret to humor is surprise.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

We make war that we may live in peace.

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

Well begun is half done.

A friend to all is a friend to none.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

Bad men are full of repentance.

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Education is the best provision for old age.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

Change in all things is sweet.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.