“Men, the enemy troops you can see are all that stands between us and the place we have for so long been determined to reach. We must find a way to eat them alive!”

Perhaps their attacks on my character meant that the hour was ripe for my career to begin in earnest.

Separated from Hellas by more than a thousand miles, they had not even a guide to point the way.

Early on, you can expect no one to believe in your destiny as much as yourself.

Most of us are always trying to increase our wealth, but you and your officers seem far more concerned with perfecting your souls.

Your game is to attack on whichever flank you can best conceal your advance, or, still better, on both flanks simultaneously.

When a horse wants to display himself, he lifts his neck up high and flexes his poll haughtily, and picks his legs up freely, and keeps his tail up.

And even as you’re working to ensure the health of your army, you must remember to take care of your own.

A man may hate cruelty and lies, but if he’s never given an opportunity to show what he’s made of, no one will remember him when he dies.

Nothing that is really good and admirable is granted by the gods to men without some effort and application.

Moderation in all things healthful; total abstinence from all things harmful.

He who marries a beautiful woman in hopes of being happy with her knows not but that even she herself may be the cause of all his uneasinesses.

The man who doesn’t know his own ability is ignorant of himself.

In my experience, men who respond to good fortune with modesty and kindness are harder to find than those who face adversity with courage.

Anything forced is not beautiful.

Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.

Let Your Tools Be Equal to the Task.

When the world’s against me is when I really come alive.

The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble.

The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.

The last time I felt alive – I was looking into your eyes. Breathing your air, touching your skin, saying goodbye. The last time I felt alive, I was dying.

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

I’ve been so unhappy for years, so unhappy, I don’t understand how a human being can be so unhappy all the time and still be alive.

Be glad you’re even alive. Be furious you’re going to die.

The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive.