Nothing made the horse so fat as the king's eye.

When malice is joined to envy, there is given forth poisonous and feculent matter, as ink from the cuttle-fish.

When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door.

They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or a military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view, something which leaves off as soon as that end is reached. It is not a public chore, to be got over with. It is a way of life. It is the life of a domesticated political and social creature who is born with a love for public life, with a desire for honor, with a feeling for his fellows; and it lasts as long as need be.

When I myself had twice or thrice made a resolute resistance unto anger, the like befell me that did the Thebans; who, having once foiled the Lacedaemonians (who before that time had held themselves invincible), never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them.

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.

A friend should be like money, tried before being required, not found faulty in our need.