"Think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. They are ready to run all risks greater far than they would have run for their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal."

"Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?"

"Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery."

"All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue."

"The desire for sex turns the penis into a disobedient thing with a mind of its own. Like an animal that will not listen .it tries to take complete control."

"Everything desires not like but unlike: for example, the dry desires the moist, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the void the full, the fill the void, and so of all other things; for the opposite is the food of the opposite, whereas receives nothing from like.,."

"Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large."

"If a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest."

"God is the cause only of good."

"Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk."