If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point and diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents.
The majority of mankind would seem to be beguiled into error by pleasure, which, not being really a good, yet seems to be so. So that they indiscriminately choose as good whatsoever gives them pleasure, while they avoid all pain alike as evil.
Purpose is a desire for something in our own power, coupled with an investigation into its means.
Without virtue it is difficult to bear gracefully the honors of fortune.
The brave man, if he be compared with the coward, seems foolhardy; and, if with the foolhardy man, seems a coward.
One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name.
If then it be possible that one contrary should exist, or be called into existence, the other contrary will also appear to be possible.
Neglect of an effective birth control policy is a never-failing source of poverty which, in turn, is the parent of revolution and crime.
For it is not true, as some treatise-mongers lay down in their systems, of the probity of the speaker, that it contributes nothing to persuasion; but moral character nearly, I may say, carries with it the most sovereign efficacy in making credible.
Every wicked man is in ignorance as to what he ought to do, and from what to abstain, and it is because of error such as this that men become unjust and, in a word, wicked.
Men are good in but one way, but bad in many.
The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous.
As our acts vary, our habits will follow in their course.
For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.
Irrational passions would seem to be as much a part of human nature as is reason.
Equity is that idea of justice which contravenes the written law.
He then alone will strictly be called brave who is fearless of a noble death, and of all such chances as come upon us with sudden death in their train.
It is easier to get one or a few of good sense, and of ability to legislate and adjudge, than to get many.
Legislative enactments proceed from men carrying their views a long time back; while judicial decisions are made off hand.
Of means of persuading by speaking there are three species: some consist in the character of the speaker; others in the disposing the hearer a certain way; others in the thing itself which is said, by reason of its proving, or appearing to prove the point.