They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever.
When trying a case [the famous judge] L. Cassius never failed to inquire "Who gained by it?" Man's character is such that no one undertakes crimes without hope of gain.
It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.
For out of such an ungoverned populace one is usually chosen as a leader, someone bold and unscrupulous who curries favor with the people by giving them other men's property. To such a man the protection of public office is given, and continually renewed. He emerges as a tyrant over the very people who raised him to power.
Whatever is graceful is virtuous, and whatever is virtuous is graceful.
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.
I've sown all the oats I want to sow.
I've only half-admitted I'm a professional. I know I am, I've paid my dues, but one of the things I could do better when I'm acting is to really be rigorous and to think I know how to do it. To use my brain.
If your job is to leaven ordinary lives with elevating spectacle, be elevating or be gone.
What do you want? You can't want to be happy, because that's too easy and too boring. You can't want only to love, because that's impossible. What do you want? You want to justify your life, to live it as intensely as possible. That is at once a trap and a source of ecstasy. Try to be alert to that danger and experience the joy and the adventure of being that woman who is beyond the image reflected in the mirror.