In peace children inter their parents, war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

I never yet feared those men who set a place apart in the middle of their cities where they gather to cheat one another and swear oaths which they break.

It is better to be envied than pitied.

A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.

The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.

Envy is so natural to human kind, that it cannot but arise.

If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.