The young are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.

[Meanness] is more ingrained in man's nature than Prodigality; the mass of mankind are avaricious rather than open-handed.

Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.

A life of wealth and many belongings is only a means to happiness. Honor, power, and success cannot be happiness because they depend on the whims of others, and happiness should be self-contained, complete in itself.

Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common; or, at any rate, they care for it only to the extent to which each is individually concerned.

Of actions some aim at what is necessary and useful, and some at what is honorable. And the preference given to one or the other class of actions must necessarily be like the preference given to one or other part of the soul and its actions over the other; there must be war for the sake of peace, business for the sake of leisure, things useful and necessary for the sake of things honorable.

We are better able to study our neighbours than ourselves, and their actions than our own.