To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.

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.

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.

What can they suffer that do not fear to die?

Reason speaks and feeling bites

Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practice.

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