It is found by experience that admirable laws and right precedents among the good have their origin in the misdeeds of others.

The solitude lends much appeal, because a sea without a harbour surrounds it. Even a modest boat can find few anchorage, and nobody can go ashore unnoticed by the guards. Its winter is mild because it is enclosed by a range of mountains which keeps out the fierce temperature; its summer is unequal. The open sea is very pleasant and it has a view of a beautiful bay.

Even for learned men, love of fame is the last thing to be given up.

Custom adapts itself to expediency.

Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.

All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others.

Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.