Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.
Comedy has had no history, because it was not at first treated seriously.
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
The nobelest expenditure is that which is made in the divine service.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Nobody will be afraid who believes nothing can happen to him.
The cultivation of the intellect is man's highest good and purest happiness.
Habits of virtue and vice are caused by acts.
Nothing is what rocks dream about.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness…
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.
Hope is a walking dream.
Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
And poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
The actuality of thought is life.
Choice, not chance, determines your destiny.
The blood of a goat will shatter a diamond.
They who love in excess also hate in excess.
There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
He who has many friends has no friends.
For the activity of the mind is life.
Wicked me obey from fear; good men, from love.
By myth I mean the arrangement of the incidents.
It is likely that unlikely things should happen.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Melancholy men, of all others, are the most witty.
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.