You cannot be buried in obscurity: you are exposed upon a grand theater to the view of the world. If your actions are upright and benevolent, be assured they will augment your power and happiness.

Success always calls for greater generosity - though most people, lost in the darkness of their own egos, treat it as an occasion for greater greed. Collecting boot is not an end itself, but only a means for building an empire. Riches would be of little use to us now - except as a means of winning new friends.

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

Whenever you can, act as a liberator. Freedom, dignity, wealth - these three together constitute the greatest happiness of humanity. If you bequeath all three to your people, their love for you will never die.

May all the gods whom I settled in their sacred centers ask daily of Bêl and Nâbu that my days be long and may they intercede for my welfare. ... The people of Babylon blessed my kingship, and I settled all the lands in peaceful abodes.

Do not suppose, my dearest sons, that when I have left you I shall be nowhere and no one. Even when I was with you, you did not see my soul, but knew that it was in this body of mine from what I did. Believe then that it is still the same, even though you see it not.

I am Cyrus, king of the world.