The enemy who shows you what mistakes you are making is much more useful than the friend who hides them from you.
The radiant beauty of youth is diminished in its perfection by exaggerated and too elegant adornments.
Fame lies in the hands of work.
There are three types of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, and those who do not see.
As the relishless gorging of food turns into sterile nourishment, so the dispassionate practice of science sullies the memory which becomes incapable of assimilating what it regurgitates.
Temperance serves as a reliable guard against vice.
I prefer death, fatigue. I never tire of serving others.
The stomach does not fill with stories.
Most people are crazy and everyone is crazy in their own way.
Man is not at war with man, but with himself, and the enemy always rushes at us precisely from within our own nature.
Madness creates the state, sustains power, religion, government and justice. What else is the whole life of man but a game of Madness?
To be honest. Was it not wisdom that brought Socrates to the cup of poison?
Be suspicious of everything that comes from your soul, even if it's something honest.
If all mortals would turn away from all pursuit of wisdom, and spend their lives only in the company of folly, there would be no old man in the world, and all would enjoy eternal youth. Look at all these dry grumps busying themselves with the study of philosophy or other difficult and boring pursuits. They didn't even get to be young and they are already old. Persevering and unceasing cares and meditations have laid waste their souls, exhausted their life-sap.
If you make new friends, don't forget the old ones.
When a wise man intervenes in a discussion, he frightens everyone no less than a wolf. If there is something to be bought, if a business is to be concluded, if, in short, it is one of those things without which our life is not possible, this sage will seem to you an incomparable fool, and not a being human. He cannot be useful either to himself or to his country, because he is ignorant of the commonest things, and is very far removed from the general opinions and customs respected by all the world. From such inconsistency with the reality of life and morals, a hatred towards everything around is certainly born, because in human society everything is soaked in stupidity, everything is done by fools among fools.
No one is forbidden to live a dignified life.
Elegance is necessary not only in the arts, but also in all human activities.
Sometimes to love well is to hate well, and to hate without fault is to love.
Truth itself possesses an irresistible force of attraction only if nothing offensive is added to it, but only fools have the gods given the science of telling the truth without offending anyone.
True honor is a reward for virtue, and not for wealth.
He is justly reprehensible who, being mortal, does not tend to become wiser than a mortal should be, he who indulgently shares the faults of the multitude and respectfully errs with them. But that is exactly what stupidity is, I will be told. I do not comment, but accept that this is exactly what it means to act in the comedy of life.
What do you think, can he love someone who hates himself?
As there is nothing more foolish than unsolicited wisdom, so there is nothing more reckless than extravagant temperance. Extravagant I call anyone who does not want to take into account the established state of things and adapt to circumstances.
Better to know less and love more than to know more and not love.
Everything has two sides, and these two sides are nothing like each other. On the outside, everything looks dead, but if you look inside, you see life, and vice versa, under the appearance of life hides death, under beauty, servitude, under abundance, a pitiable poverty, under shame, fame, under science , ignorance, under power, infirmity, under nobility, meanness, under joy, sadness.
Wise nature has wrapped the newborns in a veil of stupidity, which, bewitching parents and educators, rewards them for their efforts, gives the little ones love and protection.
Men are born for commanding activities, and therefore they had to acquire a few drops of extra reason.
It's easy to start a war, it's hard to end it.
Ignorance is the mother of conceit, and erudition begets modesty.