Unwanted favours gain no gratitude.

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare -- I have no use for him either.

The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.

What people believe prevails over the truth.

Each one of us must live the life God gives him; it cannot be shirked.

The long unmeasured pulse of time moves everything. There is nothing hidden that it cannot bring to light, nothing once known that may not become unknown. Nothing is impossible.

Nothing abides; the starry night, our wealth, our sorrows, pass away.

A man is nothing but breath and shadow.

Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

One word

Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:

That word is love.

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth!

Show me the man who keeps his house in hand; he's fit for public authority.

The golden eye of justice sees, and requites the unjust man.

Reason is God's greatest gift to man.

All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper, and the next -- who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead.

To him who is in fear everything rustles.

The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter.

Wealth makes an ugly person beautiful to look on and an incoherent speech eloquent; and wealth alone can enjoy pleasure even in sickness and can conceal its miseries.

Dirges and canticles are no prescription for ills that need the knife.

All concerns of men go wrong when they wish to cure evil with evil.

Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.

Many are the things that man seeing must understand. Not seeing, how shall he know what lies in the hand of time to come?

No man loves life like him that's growing old.

All men may err; but he that keepeth not his folly, but repenteth, doeth well; but stubbornness cometh to great trouble.

A man can get a reputation from very small things.

Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice.

The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity.

A mind at peace does not engender wars.

Kindness begets kindness evermore.

Surely there never was so evil a thing as money, which maketh cities into ruinous heaps, and banisheth men from their houses, and turneth their thoughts from good unto evil.

No wound is worse than counterfeited love.

Time eases all things.

Ah, race of mortal men,

How as a thing of nought

I count ye, though ye live;

For who is there of men

That more of blessing knows,

Than just a little while

To seem to prosper well,

And, having seemed, to fall?

Man's highest blessedness,

In wisdom chiefly stands;

And in the things that touch upon the Gods,

'Tis best in word or deed

To shun unholy pride;

Great words of boasting bring great punishments,

And so to grey-haired age

Teach wisdom at the last.

We should not speak of one that prospers well

As happy, till his life have run its course,

And reached its goal. An evil spirit's gift

In shortest time has oft laid low the state

Of one full rich in great prosperity,

When the change comes, and so the Gods appoint.

No greater evil can a man endure

Than a bad wife, nor find a greater good

Than one both good and wise; and each man speaks

As judging by the experience of his life.