Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action.

True happiness comes from gaining insight and growing into your best possible self. Otherwise all you’re having is immediate gratification pleasure, which is fleeting and doesn’t grow you as a person.

The worst thing about slavery is that the slaves eventually get to like it.

Happiness is the highest good

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor

Health is a matter of choice, not a mystery of chance

First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end

The greatest of all pleasures is the pleasure of learning

Teaching is the highest form of understanding

He who has conferred a benefit on anyone from motives of love or honor will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is received without gratitude

Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Give a man a poisoned fish, you feed him for the rest of his life

We can’t learn without pain

At the intersection where your gifts, talents, and abilities meet a human need; therein you will discover your purpose

Be a free thinker and don’t accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in

95% of everything you do is the result of habit

We are the sum of our actions, and therefore our habits make all the difference

A promise made must be a promise kept

The most beautiful colors laid on at random, give less pleasure than a black-and-white drawing

Man is the metre of all things, the hand is the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms

Every realm of nature is marvelous

It is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount of exactness which the nature of the particular subject admits. It is equally unreasonable to accept merely probable conclusions from a mathematician and to demand strict demonstration from an orator

The many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little.

Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency

If the art of ship-building were in the wood, ships would exist by nature

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own

Our youth should also be educated with music and physical education

The avarice of mankind is insatiable

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

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

Saying the words that come from knowledge is no sign of having it

One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy

All teaching and all intellectual learning come about from already existing knowledge.

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them

A person’s life persuades better than his word

It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws

In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action

Philosophy begins with wonder

There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man

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

The best way to avoid envy is to deserve the success you get

Beauty is the gift of God.

Wonder implies the desire to learn

When you ask a dumb question, you get a smart answer

Our characters are the result of our conduct

Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age

Man is by nature a political animal.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion

All men by nature desire knowledge

Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities

Wit is educated insolence

Masculine republics give way to feminine democracies, and feminine democracies give way to tyranny

Nature does nothing uselessly.

To perceive is to suffer

Greatness of spirit is accompanied by simplicity and sincerity

Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire

Freedom is obedience to self-formulated rules

All communication must lead to change

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal

Courage is the first virtue that makes all other virtues possible

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

The Law is Reason free from Passion

What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.

To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.

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 complete man must work, study and wrestle

The energy of the mind is the essence of life

It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain

A friend to all is a friend to none

Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them

Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach

Our problem is not that we aim too high and miss, but that we aim too low and hit

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled

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

Well begun is half done

Quality is not an act, it is a habit

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

Happiness depends upon ourselves

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend

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

Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

Happiness is a state of activity

Fortune favours the bold

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet

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

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader

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

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work

No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness

Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny

The more you know, the more you know you don’t know

Hope is a waking dream