Men's minds are too ready to excuse guilt in themselves.

The army from Asia introduced a foreign luxury to Rome; it was then the meals began to require more dishes and more expenditure . . . the cook, who had up to that time been employed as a slave of low price, become dear: what had been nothing but a metier was elevated to an art.

The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid.

A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.

Avarice and luxury, those evils which have been the ruin of every great state.

Valor is the soldier's adornment.

War is just to those to whom war is necessary.