That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with him and calling on the gods for help: Shut up, he said, so that they do not realize that you are here with me...
There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation.
The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.
All the fame I look for in life is to have lived it quietly.
No passion disturbs the soundness of our judgement as anger does.
There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to...
It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite s...
I listen with attention to the judgment of all men;
Of all our infirmities the most savage is to despise our being.
We are all of us richer than we think we are.
The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose.
I...think it much more supportable to be always alone, than never to be so.
Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
Meditation is a powerful and full study as can effectually taste and employ themselves.
Il n'est si homme de bien, qu'il mette à l'examen des loix toutes ses actions et pensées, qui ne soit pendable dix fois en sa vie.(There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thought...
I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.
Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.
Though the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us we must not trouble the gods with our affairs because they take no heed of our angers and disputes, we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our...