Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.

The crown of literature is poetry.

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.

The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

Impropriety is the soul of wit.

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

A friend to all is a friend to none.

Friendship is essentially a partnership.

He who hath many friends hath none.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

Well begun is half done.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

Education is the best provision for old age.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.