“Just to stir things up seemed a great reward in itself.”

No mortal man has ever served at the same time his passions and his best interests.

Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.

Kings are more prone to mistrust the good than the bad; and they are always afraid of the virtues of others.

But the case has proved that to be true which Appius says in his songs, that each man is the maker of his own fate.

The soul is the captain and ruler of the life of morals.

As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.

Harmony makes small things grow; lack of it makes great things decay.

But at power or wealth, for the sake of which wars, and all kinds of strife, arise among mankind, we do not aim; we desire only our liberty, which no honorable man relinquishes but with his life.

But few prize honour more than money.

The man who is roused neither by glory nor by danger it is in vain to exhort; terror closes the ears of the mind.

But assuredly Fortune rules in all things; she raised to eminence or buries in oblivion everything from caprice rather than from well-regulated principle.

To like and dislike the same things that is indeed true friendship.

To have the same desires and the same aversion is assuredly a firm bond of friendship.

Get good counsel before you begin; and when you have decided, act promptly.

Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.