It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.

It is a high distinction for a homely woman to be loved for her character rather than for beauty.

The ripeness of adolescence is prodigal in pleasures, skittish, and in need of a bridle.

But being overborne with numbers, and nobody daring to face about, stretching out his hands to heaven, [Romulus] prayed to Jupiter to stop the army, and not to neglect but maintain the Roman cause, now in extreme danger. The prayer was no sooner made, than shame and respect for their king checked many; the fears of the fugitives changed suddenly into confidence.

Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.

The Epicureans, according to whom animals had no creation, doe suppose that by mutation of one into another, they were first made; for they are the substantial part of the world; like as Anaxagoras and Euripides affirme in these tearmes: nothing dieth, but in changing as they doe one for another they show sundry formes.

A Spartan woman, as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him saying, "As a warrior of Sparta come back with your shield or on it."