Learn to be pleased with everything, with wealth so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.

The human heart becomes softened by hearing of instances of gentleness and consideration.

Character is inured habit.

The usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbors.

The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.

Mothers ought to bring up and nurse their own children; for they bring them up with greater affection and with greater anxiety, as loving them from the heart, and so to speak, every inch of them.

For there is no virtue, the honour and credit for which procures a man more odium from the elite than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people. For they only honour the valiant and admire the wise, while in addition they also love just men, and put entire trust and confidence in them.