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.

A multitude of rulers is not a good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king.

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

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 I like not these great successes of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.

Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed.

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.