Everything that thou reprovest in another, thou must most carefully avoid in thyself.
[Lat., Omnia quae vindicaris in altero, tibi ipsi vehementer fugienda sunt.]
In ancient times music was the foundation of all the sciences. Education was begun with music with the persuasion that nothing could be expected of a man who was ignorant of music.
What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot conceive. For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more journey money, the less there remains of the journey?
In this statement, my Scipio, I build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. And by this definition it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot and indeed this is the most odious of all tyrannies, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and mask of the people.
We rejoice in the joys of our friends as much as we do our own, and we are equally grieved at their sorrows. Wherefore the wise people will feel toward their friends as they do toward themselves, and whatever labor they would encounter with a view to their own pleasure, they will encounter also for the sake of their friends.
If I am mistaken in my opinion that the human soul is immortal, I willingly err; nor would I have this pleasant error extorted from me; and if, as some minute philosophers suppose, death should deprive me of my being, I need not fear the raillery of those pretended philosophers when they are no more.