“To someone seeking power, the poorest man is the most useful.”

The very life which we enjoy is short.

For harmony makes small states great, while discord undermines the mightiest empires.

A good man prefers to suffer rather than overcome injustice with evil.

The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity.

Those most moved to tears by every word of a preacher are generally weak and a rascal when the feelings evaporate.

It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are not necessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.

A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.

Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.

No mortal man has ever served at the same time his passions and his best interests.

Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.

Kings are more prone to mistrust the good than the bad; and they are always afraid of the virtues of others.

But the case has proved that to be true which Appius says in his songs, that each man is the maker of his own fate.

The soul is the captain and ruler of the life of morals.

As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.

Harmony makes small things grow; lack of it makes great things decay.