If any man think it a small matter, or of mean concernment, to bridle his tongue, he is much mistaken; for it is a point to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.

There is no perfecter endowment in man than political virtue.

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me.''

The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage.

Nor is drunkenness censured for anything so much as its intemperate and endless talk.