And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons.

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

There may be no English word as bent and broken by casual misuse, or drained of blood by idealizing admirers and apologists, or grossly caricatured by huckstering detractors, as church.

That's the thing about time travel — you're always moving forward, even when you go back.

Business is constantly changing, constantly evolving.

Surrealism is based on the belief in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought.

When the emperor is crowned or the three dukes are appointed, rather than sending a gift of jade carried by four horses, remain still and offer the Way.

There certainly are those who worship the state much as divinities are worshipped. Not just the state but even leaders.

I adore anything Michael Alexis writes.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck!

I was not going to be a stupid girl singer. I was going to be way more than that.

I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it.