Necessity makes even the timid brave.

Deliberate before you begin; but, having carefully done so, execute with vigour.

Most honorable are services rendered to the State; even if they do not go beyond words, they are not to be despised.

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.

The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.

Of the cosmic Gods some make the world be, others animate it, others harmonize it, consisting as it does of different elements; the fourth class keep it when harmonized.

To have the same desires and the same aversion is assuredly a firm bond of friendship.