Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.

I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.

When Anaxagoras was told of the death of his son, he only said, "I knew he was mortal." So we in all casualties of life should say "I knew my riches were uncertain, that my friend was but a man." Such considerations would soon pacify us, because all our troubles proceed from their being unexpected.

Authority and place demonstrate and try the tempers of men, by moving every passion and discovering every frailty.

It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in it's place is a work extremely troublesome.

There is no perfecter endowment in man than political virtue.

Memory: what wonders it performs in preserving and storing up things gone by - or rather, things that are