Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.

Regard as your most faithful friends, not those who praise everything you say or do, but those who criticize your mistakes.

Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is immortal.

Always when you are about to say anything, first weigh it in your mind; for with many the tongue outruns the thought.

Be gracious to all men, but choose the best to be your friends.

If you be a lover of instruction, you will be well instructed.

We should not call a city happy because it attracts masses of citizens from everywhere; a fortunate city is one in which the race of the original inhabitants is best preserved.

Guard yourself against accusations, even if they are false; for the multitude are ignorant of the truth and look only to reputation.

Conduct yourself towards your parents as you would have your children conduct themselves towards you.

But I marvel when I observe these men setting themselves up as instructors of youth who cannot see that they are applying the analogy of an art with hard and fast rules to a creative process

Oratory is good only if it has the qualities of fitness for the occasion, propriety of style, and originality of treatment, while in the case of letters there is no such need whatsoever.

Touch my heart, feel my love, don't look at me.

No one's life will be harder because I exist.

There's only one way to satisfy a ghoul's hunger.

When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.

It's pretty easy to hear what people are physically responding to versus what's just flat as a pancake in the room when it comes to jokes.

If you run a thousand miles a minute, you can expect to wear out a few pairs of shoes.

People who live in glass houses must reeeeeallly trust their neighbors.

You don't really see ugly people that are old, or a bit grotty and smelly, in the media. If a Martian came down, they would think we were all tall, thin, attractive and wealthy.

It must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they're gone. I'm too sensitive. I need to be slightly numb in order to regain the enthusiasms I once had as a child.

A conviction is in the nature of a verdict and judgment, and therefore it must be precise and certain.