The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to.

Nor was civil society founded merely to preserve the lives of its members; but that they might live well: for otherwise a state might be composed of slaves, or the animal creation... nor is it an alliance mutually to defend each other from injuries, or for a commercial intercourse. But whosoever endeavors to establish wholesome laws in a state, attends to the virtues and vices of each individual who composes it; from whence it is evident, that the first care of him who would found a city, truly deserving that name, and not nominally so, must be to have his citizens virtuous.

It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it.

Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

Man's best friend is one who wishes well to the object of his wish for his sake, even if no one is to know of it.