“Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude.”

Most honorable are services rendered to the State; even if they do not go beyond words, they are not to be despised.

One can ever assume to be what he is not, and to conceal what he is.

In my opinion it is less shameful for a king to be overcome by force of arms than by bribery.

He that will be angry for anything will be angry for nothing.

Since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of (hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices.

Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits.

To hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness. In battle those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to rampart.

Not by vows nor by womanish prayers is the help of the gods obtained; success comes through vigilance, energy, wise counsel.

Among intellectual pursuits, one of the most useful is the recording of past events.

Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.

Necessity makes even the timid brave.

In battle it is the cowards who run the most risk; bravery is a rampart of defense.

The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.

Poor Britons, there is some good in them after all – they produced an oyster.

Of the cosmic Gods some make the world be, others animate it, others harmonize it, consisting as it does of different elements; the fourth class keep it when harmonized.

It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.

One should mature over 20 years.

We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.

Suffering is nature’s way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and to the nonegocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth. People should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters.

I’m just going to make the music I love to make, and I’m going to mature with my music.

The mature person becomes able to differentiate feelings into as many nuances, strong and passionate experiences, or delicate and sensitive ones, as in the different passages of music in a symphony. Unfortunately, many of us have feelings limited like notes in a bugle call.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

The mature religious sentiment is ordinarily fashioned in the workshop of doubt.

To wear a gray tweed suit, you have to be mature and confident in yourself. Some people can’t pull it off.