It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.

They [the Persians] are accustomed to deliberate on matters of the highest moment when warm with wine; but whatever they in this situation may determine is again proposed to them on the morrow, in their cooler moments, by the person in whose house they had before assembled. If at this time also it meet their approbation, it is executed; otherwise it is rejected. Whatever also they discuss when sober, is always a second time examined after they have been drinking.

In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.

Call no man happy before he dies.

But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.

The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.

A man trusts his ears less than his eyes.