Life and Existence

The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds.

Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.

Raising children is an uncertain thing; success is reached only after a life of battle and worry.

We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.

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

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

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

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.

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

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

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.

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.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Education is the best provision for old age.

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.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

Change in all things is sweet.