To reduce man to the duties of his own city, and to disengage him from duties to the members of other cities, is to break the universal society of the human race.

Wars, therefore, are to be undertaken for this end, that we may live in peace, without being injured; but when we obtain the victory, we must preserve those enemies who behaved without cruelty or inhumanity during the war.

The spirit is the true self.

It is difficult to persuade mankind that the love of virtue is the love of themselves.

Prosperity demands of us more prudence and moderation than adversity.

This, therefore, is a law not found in books, but written on the fleshly tablets of the heart, which we have not learned from man, received or read, but which we have caught up from Nature herself, sucked in and imbibed; the knowledge of which we were not taught, but for which we were made; we received it not by education, but by intuition.

For there is assuredly nothing dearer to a man than wisdom, and though age takes away all else, it undoubtedly brings us that.