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

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 man calumniated is doubly injured -- first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it.

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

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

How can a monarchy be a suitable thing, which allows a man to do as he pleases with none to hold him to account. And even if you were to take the best man on earth, and put him into a monarchy, you put outside him the thoughts that usually guide him.

One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end.