Is there anyone to whom you entrust a greater number of serious matters than your wife? And is there anyone with whom you have fewer conversations?

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

If you can do only a little. Do what you can. What you cannot enforce, do not command.

In every sort of danger there are various ways of winning through, if one is ready to do and say anything whatever.

The rest of the world lives to eat, while I eat to live.

Are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?

The more I learn, the less I realize I know.