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.
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.
Of the bodies in the cosmos, some imitate mind and move in orbits; some imitate soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and water downward.
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.
