Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Small communities grow great through harmony, great ones fall to pieces through discord.
No man underestimates the wrongs he suffers; many take them more seriously than is right.
All who consult on doubtful matters, should be void of hatred, friendship, anger, and pity.
In my opinion it is less shameful for a king to be overcome by force of arms than by bribery.
Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude.
The glory of wealth and of beauty is fleeting and frail; virtue is illustrious and everlasting.
In victory even the cowardly like to boast, while in adverse times even the brave are discredited.
Small endeavours obtain strength by unity of action: the most powerful are broken down by discord.
Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.
The glory that goes with wealth is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal.
When the prizes fall to the lot of the wicked, you will not find many who are virtuous for virtue's sake.
Kings are more prone to mistrust the good than the bad; and they are always afraid of the virtues of others.
Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.
Fortune rules in all things, and advances and depresses things more out of her own will than right and justice.
Those most moved to tears by every word of a preacher are generally weak and a rascal when the feelings evaporate.
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.
Most honorable are services rendered to the State; even if they do not go beyond words, they are not to be despised.
The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.
In my own case, who have spent my whole life in the practice of virtue, right conduct from habitual has become natural.
They envy the distinction I have won; let them therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it.
Not by vows nor by womanish prayers is the help of the gods obtained; success comes through vigilance, energy, wise counsel.
The fame which is based on wealth or beauty is a frail and fleeting thing; but virtue shines for ages with undiminished lustre.
The fame that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; intellectual superiority is a possession glorious and eternal.
Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits.
It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.
All those who offer an opinion on any doubtful point should first clear their minds of every sentiment of dislike, friendship, anger or pity.
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.
To desire the same things and to reject the same things, constitutes true friendship. [Lat., Idem velle et idem nolle ea demum firma amicitia est.]
Of the bodies in the cosmos, some imitate mind and move in orbits; some imitate soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and water downward.
He only seems to me to live, and to make proper use of life, who sets himself some serious work to do, and seeks the credit of a task well and skillfully performed.
All men who would surpass the other animals should do their best not to pass through life silently like the beasts whom nature made prone, obedient to their bellies.
For men who had easily endured hardship, danger and difficult uncertainty, leisure and riches, though in some ways desirable, proved burdensome and a source of grief.
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.
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.
The glory of riches and of beauty is frail and transitory; virtue remains bright and eternal. [Lat., Divitarum et formae gloria fluxa atque fragilis; virtus clara aeternaque habetur.]
The Gods being good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only comes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but only comes about by absence of light.
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.
The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity. [Lat., Majorum gloria posteris lumen est, neque bona neque mala in occulto patitur.]
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.
The man who is roused neither by glory nor by danger it is in vain to exhort; terror closes the ears of the mind. [Lat., Quem neque gloria neque pericula excitant, nequidquam hortere; timor animi auribus officit.]
It is impossible that there should be so much providence in the last details, and none in the first principles. Then the arts of prophecy and of healing, which are part of the cosmos, come of the good providence of the Gods.
The Romans assisted their allies and friends, and acquired friendships by giving rather than receiving kindness. [Lat., Sociis atque amicis auxilia portabant Romani, magisque dandis quam accipiundis beneficiis amicitias parabant.]
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.
Since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of (hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices.
It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are notnecessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.
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.
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.
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?
The fact that the stars predict high or low rank for the father of the person whose horoscope is taken, teaches that they do not always make things happen but sometimes only indicate things. For how could things which preceded the birth depend upon the birth?
If fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.