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.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

To think well and to consent to obey someone giving good advice are the same thing.

How much better a thing it is to be envied than to be pitied.

It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace.

In soft regions are born soft men.