Knavery is the best defense against a knave.

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.

If you declare that you are naturally designed for such a diet, then first kill for yourself what you want to eat. Do it, however, only through your own resources, unaided by cleaver or cudgel or any kind of ax

He who least likes courting favour, ought also least to think of resenting neglect; to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it.

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

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

Wickedness frames the engines of her own torment. She is a wonderful artisan of a miserable life.