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.

Character is long-standing habit.

For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.

Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life.

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

It is not the most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discovered; but very often an action of small note. An casual remark or joke shall distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles.

Knavery is the best defense against a knave.