It is a high distinction for a homely woman to be loved for her character rather than for beauty.
Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.
Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.
It is easy to utter what has been kept silent, but impossible to recall what has been uttered.
Gout is not relieved by a fine shoe nor a hangnail by a costly ring nor migraine by a tiara.
Forgetfulness transforms every occurrence into a non-occurrence.
Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others’.
Solon being asked, namely, what city was best to live in. That city, he replied, in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers.
There is no stronger test of a person’s character than power and authority, exciting as they do every passion, and discovering every latent vice.
Pittacus said, “Every one of you hath his particular plague, and my wife is mine; and he is very happy who hath this only”.
Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.
Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.
He who cheats with an oath acknowledges that he is afraid of his enemy, but that he thinks little of God.
Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless.
Nor let us part with justice, like a cheap and common thing, for a small and trifling price.
The great god Pan is dead.
Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.
Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce.
They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men.
Justice makes the life of such as are in prosperity, power and authority the life of a god, and injustice turns it to that of a beast.