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What is Art, monsieur, but Nature concentrated?

History is of two kinds—there is the official history taught in schools, a lying compilation ad usum delphini; and there is the secret history which deals with the real causes of events—a scandalous chronicle.

No species remains constant: that great renovator of matter

Nature, endlessly fashions new forms from old: there’s nothing

in the whole universe that perishes, believe me; rather

it renews and varies its substance. What we describe as birth

is no more than incipient change from a prior state, while dying

is merely to quit it. Though the parts may be transported

hither and thither, the sum of all matter is constant.

Ill-gotten gains work evil.

There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;

No wisdom but in submission to the gods.

Big words are always punished,

And proud men in old age learn to be wise.

The ideal condition

Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct;

But since we are all too likely to go astray,

The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.

He did the housework as Philopoemen sawed his wood, communicating the simplicity of doing to all his actions, maintaining his dignity, for he seemed to understand that the goal ennobles everything.

Love, unconquerable,

Waster of rich men, keeper

Of warm lights and all-night vigil

In the soft face of a girl:

Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor!

Even the pure immortals cannot escape you,

And mortal man, in his one day's dusk,

Trembles before your glory.

Evil seems good, soon or late, to him whose mind the god draws to mischief.

It is no weakness for the wisest man

To learn when he is wrong.

Think not that thy word, and thine alone, must be right.

Numberless are the world's wonders, but none

More wonderful than man.