To rule yourself is the ultimate power

Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. . . . . . No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.

As fate is inexorable, and not to be moved either with tears or reproaches, an excess of sorrow is as foolish as profuse laughter; while, on the other hand, not to mourn at all is insensibility.

A hungry people listens not to reason, not cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers.

You cannot, I repeat, successfully acquire it and preserve your modesty at the same time.

A man who suffers or stresses before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary

No man esteems anything that comes to him by chance; but when it is governed by reason, it brings credit both to the giver and receiver; whereas those favors are in some sort scandalous that make a man ashamed of his patron.