As soft wax is apt to take the stamp of the seal, so are the minds of young children to receive the instruction imprinted on them.
When the candles are out all women are fair.
Either is both, and Both is neither.
I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot.
A fool cannot hold his tongue.
It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.
Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.
The giving of riches and honors to a wicked man is like giving strong wine to him that hath a fever.
Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life.
Note that the eating of flesh is not only physically against nature, but it also makes us spiritually coarse and gross by reason of satiety and surfeit.
The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.
If you declare that you are naturally designed for such a diet, then first kill for yourself what you want to eat. Do it, however, only through your own resources, unaided by cleaver or cudgel or any kind of ax.
When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, ‘Action, Action, Action.’
It is the admirer of himself, and not the admirer of virtue, that thinks himself superior to others.
Memory: what wonders it performs in preserving and storing up things gone by – or rather, things that are.
The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.
Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.
Books delight to the very marrow of one’s bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.
Barba non facit philosophum.
For he who gives no fuel to fire puts it out, and likewise he who does not in the beginning nurse his wrath and does not puff himself up with anger takes precautions against it and destroys it.