Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?
Decide which is the line of conduct that presents the fewest drawbacks and then follow it out as being the best one, because one never finds anything perfectly pure and unmixed, or exempt from danger.
For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find.
Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.
The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.
Nothing is as uplifting as standing before a great painting whether it was painted in 1505 or last Tuesday.
A lot of times, it gets weird when some guy is playing your dad. It feels weird to you. It feels like they're forcing sentiment. It's disgusting.
I just want people to remember me like I remember Buster Keaton. When they talk about Buster Keaton or Gene Kelly, people say, 'Ah yes, they good. ' Maybe one day, they remember Jackie Chan that way.
According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking.