This king [Sesostris] divided the land among all Egyptians so as to give each one a quadrangle of equal size and to draw from each his revenues, by imposing a tax to be levied yearly. But everyone from whose part the river tore anything away, had to go to him to notify what had happened; he then sent overseers who had to measure out how much the land had become smaller, in order that the owner might pay on what was left, in proportion to the entire tax imposed. In this way, it appears to me, geometry originated, which passed thence to Hellas.

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

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.

The period of a [Persian] boy's education is between the ages of five and twenty, and he is taught three things only: to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth.

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.

Before a man dies, hold back and call him not happy but lucky.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.