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

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

He who owns a hundred sheep must fight with fifty wolves

The man who first brought ruin upon the Roman people was he who pampered them by largesses and amusements.

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.

Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within.

Real excellence, indeed, is most recognized when most openly looked into.