No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

Wit is educated insolence.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.

In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. In this way, seeing everything with the utmost vividness, as if he were a spectator of the action, he will discover what is in keeping with it, and be most unlikely to overlook inconsistencies.

A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.

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.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

Nature does nothing in vain.

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.