“If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.”

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.

But I like not these great successes of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.

In soft regions are born soft men.

He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.

Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans; those who are rash and precipitate seldom enjoy the favour of the gods.

But if you know that you are a man too, and that even such are those that rule, learn this first of all: that all human affairs are a wheel which, as it turns, does not allow the same men always to be fortunate.

I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

Call no man happy before he dies.

The sun will not shine on any country that has borders with ours.

It is a law of nature that fainthearted men should be the fruit of luxurious countries, for we never find that the same soil produces delicacies and heroes.

One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end.