"Men say that we ought not to enquire into the supreme God and the nature of the universe, nor busy ourselves in searching out the causes of things, and that such enquiries are impious; whereas the very opposite is the truth."

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

"Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may."

"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another."

"Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine. A man who uses reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as perfect can be. He stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine; ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by god."

"Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them? people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust, about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them."

"There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain."

"The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction."

"He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it."

"We are twice armed if we fight with faith."

"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."

"A life without investigation is not worth living."

"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder."

"Good actions can strengthen ourselves and inspire good actions to others."

"There can be no fairer spectacle than that of a man, who combines the possession of moral beauty in his soul with the outward beauty of form, corresponding and harmonizing with the former, because the same great pattern enters both."

"Any peace is better than any war."

"When men speak ill of thee, live so that nobody will believe them."

"The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so."

"It is by justice, that we can authenticate a man's value or nullity, the absence of justice, is the absence of what makes him man."

"Books are immortal sons defying their sires."