“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 fame that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; intellectual superiority is a possession glorious and eternal.

It is always easy to begin a war, but very difficult to stop one.

There were few who preferred honor to money.

The firmest friendship is based on an identity of likes and dislikes.

Each man the architect of his own fate.

Small communities grow great through harmony, great ones fall to pieces through discord.

Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light.

Before you act consider; when you have considered, tis fully time to act.

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?

Fortune rules in all things, and advances and depresses things more out of her own will than right and justice.

Prosperity tries the souls even of the wise.

All those who offer an opinion on any doubtful point should first clear their minds of every sentiment of dislike, friendship, anger or pity.

The higher your station, the less your liberty.

The glory of riches and of beauty is frail and transitory; virtue remains bright and eternal.

Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune.

The fame which is based on wealth or beauty is a frail and fleeting thing; but virtue shines for ages with undiminished lustre.