Politeness and an affable address are our best introduction.

Let arms yield to the toga, let the [victor's] laurel yield to the [orator's] tongue.

The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs.

Vicious habits are so great a stain to human nature, and so odious in themselves, that every person actuated by right reason would avoid them, though he were sure they would be always concealed both from God and man, and had no future punishment entailed upon them.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

That he who hath the loan of money has not repaid it, and he who has repaid has not the loan; but he who has acknowledged a kindness has it still, and he who has a feeling of it has requited it.

For surely to be wise is the most desirable thing in all the world.