Don't confuse meaning with truth.

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, he began at the moment that it broke out, believing that it would be a great war, and more memorable than any that had preceded it.

It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.

He passes through life most securely who has least reason to reproach himself with complaisance toward his enemies.

To be an object of hatred and aversion to their contemporaries has been the usual fate of all those whose merit has raised them above the common level. The man who submits to the shafts of envy for the sake of noble objects pursues a judicious course for his own lasting fame. Hatred dies with its object, while merit soon breaks forth in full splendor, and his glory is handed down to posterity in never-dying strains.

An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.

It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire