“But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor’s troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.”

All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.

In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.

The gods loves to punish whatever is greater than the rest.

A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.

If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own

Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time.

Let there be nothing untried; for nothing happens by itself, but men obtain all things by trying.

How much better a thing it is to be envied than to be pitied.

God does not suffer presumption in anyone but himself.

Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.

It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.

The period of a [Persian] boy’s education is between the ages of five and twenty, and he is taught three things only: to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace.

The most hateful grief of all human griefs is to have knowledge of a truth, but no power over the event.

Love of honor is a very shady sort of possession.