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

A small state increases by concord; the greatest falls gradually to ruin by dissension.

The higher your station, the less your liberty.

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.

The firmest friendship is based on an identity of likes and dislikes.

Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy, and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it.

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