So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.

Mothers ought to bring up and nurse their own children; for they bring them up with greater affection and with greater anxiety, as loving them from the heart, and so to speak, every inch of them.

Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.

It is the usual consolation of the envious, if they cannot maintain their superiority, to represent those by whom they are surpassed as inferior to some one else.

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.

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

Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce.