There is nothing like despair to make one throw oneself upon the gods.

We Persians have a saying that one should deliberate serious matters first drunk, then sober.

An audience of twenty thousand, sitting on its hands, could not have produced such an echoing silence.

Longing performs all things

Alexander, of whom men tell many legends, lived by his own. Achilles must have Patroklos. He might love his Briseis; but Patroklos was the friend till death. At their tombs in Troy, Alexander and Hephaistion had sacrificed together. Wound Patroklos, and Achilles will have your blood.

It is bitter to lose a friend to evil before one loses him to death.

It gives me no joy to be praised at the expense of a better artist, by someone who does not know the difference or who thinks me too vain to be aware of it myself.