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.
But assuredly Fortune rules in all things; she raised to eminence or buries in oblivion everything from caprice rather than from well-regulated principle.
All persons who are enthusiastic that they should transcend the other animals ought to strive with the utmost effort not to pass through a life of silence, like cattle, which nature has fashioned to be prone and obedient to their stomachs.
Neither the army nor the treasury, but friends, are the true supports of the throne; for friends cannot be collected by force of arms, nor purchased with money; they are the offspring of kindness and sincerity.
Everything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from which it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved into the elements from which they came, then there will be others: else how did they come into being at all?
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.
