Why do men seek honour? Surely in order to confirm the favourable opinion they have formed of themselves.

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.

A very populous city can rarely, if ever, be well governed.

The life of children, as much as that of intemperate men, is wholly governed by their desires.

Life is full of chances and changes, and the most prosperous of men may in the evening of his days meet with great misfortunes.

Personal beauty requires that one should be tall; little people may have charm and elegance, but beauty—no.

The business of every art is to bring something into existence, and the practice of an art involves the study of how to bring into existence something which is capable of having such an existence and has its efficient cause in the maker and not in itself.

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.

The quality of a life is determined by its activities.

Art completes what nature cannot bring to finish. The artist gives us knowledge of nature’s unrealized ends.