“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear...”

“From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear ...”

“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”

“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing ...”

“A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of...”

“Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to b...”

“As the map of the Great Plain was being redrawn by a young Shazarian councillor, the ageing Shylonian king interrupted mid-speech to ask him his name. With a piercing glare and a haughty flick of h...”

“The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel b...”

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.”

“Men are not gentle and graceful beings solely oriented towards good. They are physical, coarse, contradictory, stretched between desires and temptations. In an unnatural wish to make them sinless a...”

“Lie down beside these watersThat bubble from the spring;Hear in the desert silenceThe desert sparrow sing;Draw from the shapeless momentSuch pattern as you can;And cleave henceforth to Beauty;Expec...”

“The motives of mankind are plainer than the motions they produce.”