» Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
» Let us describe the education of our men. What then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.
» The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.
» I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.
» We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.
» A well begun is half ended.
» There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.
» He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
» Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold and have escaped, not from one master, but from many.
» When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.