Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.

The Persians are very fond of wine ... It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then in the morning, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they are sober at their first deliberations, but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine.

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.

It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a days journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.

It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.

Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.