Eloquence.— We need both what is pleasing and what is real, but that which pleases must itself be drawn from the true.

All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.

Something incomprehensible is not for that reason less real.

If you want to be a real seeker of truth, you need to, at least once in your lifetime, doubt in, as much as it's possible, in everything.

We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.

Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.