Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.

It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue or vice, indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of a character than battles where thousands die.

To fail to do good is as bad as doing harm.

So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence.

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.

Learn to be pleased with everything, with wealth so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.

When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, 'Action, Action, Action.'