People flatter us because they can depend upon our credulity.
Traitors are hated even by those whom they prefer.
Greater things are believed of those who are absent.
Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.
Posterity allows to every man his true value and proper honours.
The lust of dominion burns with a flame so fierce as to overpower all other affections of the human breast.