The part of life we really live is small.’ For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.
Anyone who is an enemy of mine, let him love women, but let he who is my friend rejoice in men.
Everything that rises sets, and everything that grows, grows old.
It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.
Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.
The greatest misery in adverse fortune is once to have been happy.
An orator is a good man who is skilled in speaking.
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.
Friendship is the most valuable of all human possessions.
For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.
In my opinion, he only may be truly said to live and enjoy his being who is engaged in some laudable pursuit, and acquires a name by some illustrious action, or useful art.
Let each man pass his days in that wherein his skill is greatest.
No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss; nothing, however, is lost with less discomfort than that which, when lost, cannot be missed.
Speech is the mirror of the soul.
For sheep don’t throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk.
I prefer to do right and get no thanks than to do wrong and receive no punishment.
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.
Fame in a world like this is worthless.
I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war.
Thus ever from himself doth each man flee.’ But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself? He ever follows himself and weighs upon himself as his own most burdensome companion. And so we ought to understand that what we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves.
Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.
A woman is not beautiful when her ankle or arm wins compliments, but when her total appearance diverts admiration from the individual parts of her body.
But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.
Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.
Does the emerald lose its beauty for lack of admiration?
Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
Fortune favours the bold
Grant us a brief delay; impulse in everything is but a worthless servant.
He was a strange mixture of good and bad, of luxury and industry, courtesy and arrogance. In leisure he was self-indulgent, but full of vigour on service. His outward behaviour was praiseworthy, though ill was spoken of his private life.
How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.
I attempt an arduous task; but there is no worth in that which is not a difficult achievement.
If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.
If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you
In these matters, the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
It is certain because it is impossible
It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. … The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.
Its a dream, a fearful dream, life is.
Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love.
Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.
Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.
One story is good, till another is told.
Pleasant it to behold great encounters of warfare arrayed over the plains, with no part of yours in peril.
