For, in the language of Heraclitus, the virtuous soul is pure and unmixed light, springing from the body as a flash of lightning darts from the cloud. But the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dank vapor, can with difficulty be kindled, and caused to raise its eyes heavenward.

Character is long-standing habit.

Fortune had favoured me in this war that I feared, the rather, that some tempest would follow so favourable a gale.

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

A fool cannot hold his tongue.

We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.

It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue or vice, indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of a character than battles where thousands die.