Whenever anything is spoken against you that is not true, do not pass by or despise it because it is false; but forthwith examine yourself, and consider what you have said or done that may administer a just occasion of reproof.

Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.

He is a fool who leaves things close at hand to follow what is out of reach.

Nature without learning is like a blind man; learning without Nature, like a maimed one; practice without both, incomplete. As in agriculture a good soil is first sought for, then a skilful husbandman, and then good seed; in the same way nature corresponds to the soil, the teacher to the husbandman, precepts and instruction to the seed.

Nothing can produce so great a serenity of life as a mind free from guilt and kept untainted, not only from actions, but purposes that are wicked. By this means the soul will be not only unpolluted but also undisturbed. The fountain will run clear and unsullied.

Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others'.

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.