The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage.

It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.

It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.

What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.

I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth.

The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.

The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention.