Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
Marcus Tullius CiceroNature has circumscribed the field of life within small dimensions, but has left the field of glory unmeasured.
Marcus Tullius CiceroWe can more easily avenge an injury than requite a kindness; on this account, because there is less difficulty in getting the better of the wicked than in making one's self equal with the good.
Marcus Tullius CiceroNow in regard to trades and other means of livelihood, which ones are to be considered becoming to a gentleman and which ones are vulgar, we have been taught, in general, as follows. First, those means of livelihood are rejected as undesirable which incur people's ill-will, as those of tax-gatherers and usurers. Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery.
Marcus Tullius Cicero