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.

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

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own

The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.

We are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.