It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good

In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names

Would that I could discover truth as easily as I can uncover falsehood

A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.

Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.

In times of war, the law falls silent.Silent enim leges inter arma

Friendship makes prosperity brighter, while it lightens adversity by sharing its grieves and anxieties.

Old age has been charged with being insensible to pleasure and to enjoyments arising from the gratification of the senses, a most blessed and heavenly effect, truly, if it eases us of what in youth...

May the gods avert the omen.

When superstition goes, religion remains

Sweet is the memory of past troubles.

We should be as careful of our words as of our actions, and as far from speaking ill as from doing ill

He himself said it, and this self was Pythagoras.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts. it is something celestial and divine.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

It is the character of a brave and resolute man not to be ruffled by adversity and not to desert his post

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

To live is to think.

Honor is the reward of virtue.

Give me a young man in whom there is some- thing of the old, and an old man with something of the young: guided so, a man may grow old in body, but never in...

There is nothing done by the hands of man which sometime or other time does not destroy

If our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right

The foundation of justice is good faith.

There is no place more delightful than one’s own fireplace.

O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into...

Knowledge which is divorced from justice may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

By doubting we come at truth.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens and to place it in cities, and even to introduce it into homes and compel it to inquire about life and standards and goods...

If I err in my belief that the souls of men are immortal, I err gladly, and do not wish to lose so delightful an error

Let the soldier yield to the civilian

What is more agreeable than one’s home?

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.

Two distinctive traits especially identify beyond a doubt a strong and dominant character. One trait is contempt for external circumstances, when one is convinced that men ought to respect, to desire, and to pursue only...

Here is a man whose life and actions the world has already condemned – yet whose enormous fortune…has already brought him acquittal!

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

No sane man will dance.

What times! What habits!

There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it

The law in Athens is true in Rome

To the sick, while there is life there is hope.

No well-informed person ever imputed inconsistency to another for changing his mind.

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

Since it’s clear then that what sets itself in motion is eternal, who could fail to attribute such a nature to the soul. Anything set in motion by external impetus is inanimate; what is animate...

They condemn what they do not understand