The desire to know a thing is heightened by its gratification being deferred.

As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into licentiousness.

Compassion and shame come over one who considers how precarious is the origin of the proudest of living beings: often the smell of a lately extinguished lamp is enough to cause a miscarriage. And to think that from such a frail beginning a tyrant or butcher may be born! You who trust in your physical strength, who embrace the gifts of fortune and consider yourself not their ward but their son, you who have a domineering spirit, you who consider yourself a god as soon as success swells your breast, think how little could have destroyed you!

Wine refreshes the stomach, sharpens the appetite, blunts care and sadness, and conduces to slumber.

But with man, — by Hercules! most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.

The feasant hens of Colchis, which have two ears as it were consisting of feathers, which they will set up and lay down as they list.

The best kind of wine is that which is most pleasant to him who drinks it.