“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.”

The glory of riches and of beauty is frail and transitory; virtue remains bright and eternal.

Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune.

The fame which is based on wealth or beauty is a frail and fleeting thing; but virtue shines for ages with undiminished lustre.

In my own case, who have spent my whole life in the practice of virtue, right conduct from habitual has become natural.

All persons who are enthusiastic that they should transcend the other animals ought to strive with the utmost effort not to pass through a life of silence, like cattle, which nature has fashioned to be prone and obedient to their stomachs.

Greedy for the property of others, extravagant with his own

Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

No man underestimates the wrongs he suffers; many take them more seriously than is right.

Neither the army nor the treasury, but friends, are the true supports of the throne; for friends cannot be collected by force of arms, nor purchased with money; they are the offspring of kindness and sincerity.

The Romans assisted their allies and friends, and acquired friendships by giving rather than receiving kindness.

For men who had easily endured hardship, danger and difficult uncertainty, leisure and riches, though in some ways desirable, proved burdensome and a source of grief.

In victory even the cowardly like to boast, while in adverse times even the brave are discredited.

It is better to use fair means and fail, than foul and conquer.

Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude.

Small endeavours obtain strength by unity of action: the most powerful are broken down by discord.

The poorest of men are the most useful to those seeking power.

The human body is in constant change the minute we’re born. It’s in a constant state of decay. We’re all like Ford Escorts, just falling apart.

Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

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

Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

All bodies are slow in growth but rapid in decay.

Reality TV to me is the museum of social decay.

Life – a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.