"No knowledge considers or prescribes for the advantage of the stronger, but for that of the weaker, which it rules."

"How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem."

"Democracy passes into despotism."

"All who do evil and dishonorable things do them against their will."

"Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly."

"Wisdom alone is the true and unalloyed coin for which we ought to exchange all things, for this and with this everything is bought and sold Fortitude, temperance, and justice; in a word, true virtue subsists with wisdom."

"The tools that would teach men their own use would be beyond price."

"I prefer nothing, unless it is true."

"If a painter, then, paints a picture of an ideally beautiful man, complete to the last detail, is he any the worse painter because he cannot show that such a man could really exist?"

"Love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good."