It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.
It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.
Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.
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.