It is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of God is a kind of punishment: we may well believe that those who knew the Gods and neglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the knowledge of them altogether. Also those who have worshipped their own kings as gods have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of God.

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.

Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude.

Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.

Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune.

Each man the architect of his own fate.

But the case has proved that to be true which Appius says in his songs, that each man is the maker of his own fate.