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

It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot.

But the Lacedaemonians, who make it their first principle of action to serve their country's interest, know not any thing to be just or unjust by any measure but that.

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

The superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods, as the atheist does not, but fears to disbelieve in them.