Those who know nothing about history are doomed forever to repeat it.

So I should say that civilizations begin with religion and stoicism: they end with scepticism and unbelief, and the undisciplined pursuit of individual pleasure. A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.

The Institutional Church (ecclesia) has killed only two kinds of people: Those who do not believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and those who do.

How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.

Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day

A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.

The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.