It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
Abstruse questions must have abstruse answers.
Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune.
Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.
The authors of great evils know best how to remove them.
Man is neither by birth nor disposition a savage, nor of unsocial habits, but only becomes so by indulging in vices contrary to his nature.