The flatterer's object is to please in everything he does; whereas the true friend always does what is right, and so often gives pleasure, often pain, not wishing the latter, but not shunning it either, if he deems it best.

What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel

It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears.

For man is a plant, not fixed in the earth, nor immovable, but heavenly, whose head, rising as it were from a root upwards, is turned towards heaven.

While Leonidas was preparing to make his stand, a Persian envoy arrived. The envoy explained to Leonidas the futility of trying to resist the advance of the Great King's army and demanded that the Greeks lay down their arms and submit to the might of Persia. Leonidas laconically told Xerxes, "Come and get them.

A Spartan woman, as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him saying, "As a warrior of Sparta come back with your shield or on it."

The usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbors.