Wealth to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degredation to make no effort to overcome.
Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.
In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.
A collision at sea can ruin your entire day.
Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made.
For so remarkably perverse is the nature of man that he despises whoever courts him, and admires whoever will not bend before him.
For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.
For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller cities to subjection.
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.
Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can.
Hope, danger’s comforter.
Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.
When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.
Mankind are tolerant of the praises of others as long as each hearer thinks that he can do as well or nearly as well himself, but, when the speaker rises above him, jealousy is aroused and he begins to be incredulous.
War is a matter not so much of arms as of money.
Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which all can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required.
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.
I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usaully goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of mind.
Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position...