“Chances rule men and not men chances.”

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.

Haste in every business brings failures.

The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.

As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning.

The king’s might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.

It is better to be envied than pitied.

These ‘messengers’ will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night.

The Colchians, Ethiopians and Egyptians have thick lips, broad nose, woolly hair and they are burnt of skin.

Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.

Happiness is not fame or riches or heroic virtues, but a state that will inspire posterity to think in reflecting upon our life, that it was the life they would wish to live.

The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.

At some point you’re gonna have to take a chance on something.

Marriage is the only chance (and it is but a chance) offered to women for escape from this death and how eagerly and how ignorantly it is embraced.

What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance.

Dust off your heart and let it love once more.

The chance of failure is almost always better than the guarantee of never knowing.

Is there a chance? A fragment of light at the end of the tunnel? A reason to fight? Is there a chance you may change your mind? Or are we ashes and wine?

The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.

If you’re waiting around for something to be handed to you or win the lottery, chances are nothing is ever going to go down, you know, so you got to make it happen on your own.