“This precept descended from Heaven: know thyself.”

A lucky man is rarer than a white crow.

Is it a simple form of madness to lose a hundred thousand sesterces, and not have a shirt to give to a shivering slave?

Where talent is lacking, anger writes poetry.

Vice can deceive under the guise and shadow of virtue.

Every great house is full of haughty servants.

Many commit the same crime with a very different result. One bears a cross for his crime; another a crown.

The love of money grows as the money itself grows.

Some men make fortunes, but not to enjoy them for, blinded by avarice, they live to make fortunes.

Luxury is more deadly than any foe.

No one rejoices more in revenge than woman.

There is nothing worse than words of kindness that lie.

Who will watch the watchers?

Give up all hope of peace so long as your mother-in-law is alive.

It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.

Dare to do things worthy of imprisonment if you mean to be of consequence.

Now we suffer the evils of a long peace; luxury more cruel than war broods over us and avenges a conquered world.

Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It’s a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.

But within these spheres … another authority rules, an authority that descends directly from God apart from the state. This authority the state does not confer but acknowledges.

Ah, yet, e’er I descend to th’ grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true

The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.

Your descendants shall gather your fruits.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

In the space of no-mind, truth descends like light.

Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits.