The art of war is like the art of the courtesan; indeed they might be called sisters, since both are slaves of desperation.

Desire is poison at lunch and wormwood at dinner; your bed is a stone, friendship is hateful and your fancy is always fixed on one thing.

Flee laziness which while it produces an immediate delight, ends in the sorrow of repentance. And know that nature without exercise is a seed shut up in the pod, and art without practice is nothing.

I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.

Why should the eyes be denied what delights them most?

Nothing, it appears to me, is of greater value in a man than the power of judgment; and the man who has it may be compared to a chest filled with books, for he is the son of nature and the father of art.

The best thing for a man to do is to be born and, being born, to die at once.