To lead an orchestra, you must turn your back on the crowd.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation.
Through discipline comes freedom.
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 worst thing about slavery is that the slaves eventually get to like it.
It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.
It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.
We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure, just as we go to war in order that we may have peace.
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.
It is impossible, or not easy, to alter by argument what has long been absorbed by habit.
The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity of the dissimilar.
My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
Friends hold a mirror up to each other; through that mirror they can see each other in ways that would not otherwise be accessible to them, and it is this mirroring that helps them improve themselves as persons.
There is nothing unequal as the equal treatment of unequals.
Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Give a man a poisoned fish, you feed him for the rest of his life.
What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.
Prosperity makes friends and adversity tries them. A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
The end of labor is to gain leisure.