After having won a scepter, few are so generous as to disdain the pleasures of ruling.

I love you much less than my God, but much more than myself.

The greater the effort, the greater the glory.

Be it only for a day, it is still a glory without equal to be master of the world just that day.

Your Christians, whom one persecutes in vain, have something in them that surpasses the human. They lead a life of such innocence,that the heavens owe them some recognition: that they arise the stronger the more they are beaten down is hardly the result of common virtues.

The universe has no prince or king that it [Rome] would consider equal to its humblest citizen.

He who forgives readily only invites offense.