Quotes to inspire and reflect

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.

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

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

To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.

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.

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

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

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

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

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

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.

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

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.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

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

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

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

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

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

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

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

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

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

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.

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

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

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.

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

Hope is a waking dream.

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

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

You should not decide until you have heard what both have to say.

The wise learn many things from their enemies.

High thoughts must have high language.

Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.

Love is simply the name for the desire and the pursuit of the whole.

A man's homeland is wherever he prospers.

Under every stone lurks a politician.

Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.

A man may learn wisdom even from a foe.

Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war.

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.