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

What most of all enables a man to serve the public is not wealth, but content and independence; which, requiring no superfluity at home, distracts not the mind from the common good.

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.

Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

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.

To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.