“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

“The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.”

“To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days”

“Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage. ”

“Antipater, in a letter written upon the death of Aristotle, the philosopher, observes, "Amongst his other gifts he had that of persuasiveness"; and the absence of this in the character of Marcius made all his great actions and noble qualities unacceptable to those whom they benifited: pride, and self-will, the consort, as Plato calls it, of solitude, made him insufferable. With the skill which Alcibiades, on the contrary, possessed to treat every one in the way most agreeable to him, we cannot wonder that all his successes were attended with the most exuberant favour and honour; his very errors, at time, being accompanied by something of grace and felicity. And so in spite of great and frequent hurt that he had done the city, he was repeatedly appointed to office and command; while Coriolanus stood in vain for a place which his great services had made his due. The one, in spite of the harm he occasioned, could not make himself hated, nor the other, with all the admiration he attracted, succeed in being beloved by his countrymen.”

“Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.”

“...To the Dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage”