And now for the vapor-bath: on a framework of three sticks, meeting at the top, they stretch pieces of woolen cloth, taking care to get the joints as perfect as they can, and inside this little tent they put a dish with red-hot stones in it. Then they take some hemp seed, creep into the tent, and throw the seed on to the hot stones. At once it begins to smoke, giving off a vapor unsurpassed by any vapor-bath one could find in Greece. The Sythians enjoy it so much that they howl with pleasure. This is their substitute for an ordinary bath in water, which they never use.

The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.

We have two useless gods who never leave our island, but like to dwell in it constantly, Poverty and Helplessness.

History is marked by alternating movements across the imaginary line that separates East from West in Eurasia.

The sun will not shine on any country that has borders with ours.

I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

For of those [cities] that were great in earlier times, most of them have now become small, while those which were great in my time were small formerly.