The administration of government, like a guardianship ought to be directed to the good of those who confer, not of those who receive the trust.

The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret -- that man is black at heart: mark and avoid him.

Rashness is the companion of youth, prudence of old age.

Nothing is so unpredictable as a throw of the dice, and yet every man who plays often will at some time or other make a Venus-cast: now and then he indeed will make it twice and even thrice in succession. Are we going to be so feebleminded then as to aver that such a thing happened by the personal intervention of Venus rather than by pure luck?

No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.

Friendship is the only point in human affairs concerning the benefit of which all, with one voice, agree.

Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to please as expectation.