“So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence.”

“There was a young man favorably endowed as an Alcibiades. He lost his way in the world. In his need he looked about for a Socrates but found none among his contemporaries. Then he requested the gods to change him into one. But now--he who had been so proud of being an Alcibiades was so humiliated and humbled by the gods' favor that, just when he received what he could be proud of, he felt inferior to all.”

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but on the mastery of his passions.”

“His absence has only made him more present.”

“He had no idea of how long his life would one day seem to have gone on; how daily present the absence of love would come to feel.“Just watch me,” he said.”

“He who suffers wins in politics. The martyr does not obtain the victory personally, but his group, his successors, win in the long run.”