Great Throughts Treasury

"In recounting our woes, we often soothe them."

"In the service of Caesar, everything is legitimate."

"It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace."

"It matters more how one gives than what one gives."

"It takes good memory to keep up a lie."

"Just vengeance does not call for punishment."

"Love is a tyrant sparing none."

"Master of the universe but not of myself, I am the only rebel against my absolute power."

"My reason, it's true, controls my feelings, but whatever its authority, it doesn't rule them so much as tyrannize them."

"My sweetest hope is to lose hope."

"Oh, how sweet it is to pity the fate of an enemy who can no longer threaten us!"

"One half of my life has put the other half in the grave."

"Peace is produced by war."

"Reason and love are sworn enemies."

"Self-love is the source of all our other loves."

"Severity is allowable where gentleness has no effect."

"The crime and not the scaffold makes the shame."

"The greater the effort, the greater the glory."

"They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always."

"Those who easily forgive invite offenses."

"To conquer without danger is to conquer without glory."

"To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster; either condemn or crown your hatred."

"True, I am young, but for souls nobly born valor doesn't await the passing of years."

"We never taste a perfect joy; our happiest successes are mixed with sadness. [We never taste happiness in perfection; our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.]"

"When the patient loves his disease, how unwilling he is to allow a remedy to be applied."

"A true king is neither husband nor father; he considers his throne and nothing else."

"A Victory without danger is a triumph without glory."

"After having won a scepter, few are so generous as to disdain the pleasures of ruling."

"Alas, I emerge from one disaster to fall into a worse."

"All evils are equal when they are extreme."

"All great virtues become great men."

"Ambition becomes displeasing when it is once satiated; there is a reaction; and as our spirit, till our last sigh, is always aiming toward some object, it falls back on itself, having nothing else on which to rest; and having reached the summit, it longs to descend."

"Ambition, having reached the summit, longs to descend."

"Among wellborn spirits courage does not depend on age."

"And the combat ceased, for want of combatants."

"By speaking of our misfortunes we often relieve them."

"Clemency is the surest proof of a true monarch."

"Do your duty, and leave the outcome to the Gods."

"Do your duty, and let the gods do the rest."

"Every brave man is a man of his word; to such base vices he cannot stoop, and shuns more than death the shame of lying."

"Every brave man shuns, more than death, the shame of lying."

"Every moment of life is a step towards death."

"Flee an enemy who knows your weakness."

"Generosity is toe accompaniment of high birth; pity and gratitude are its attendants."

"Happiness seems made to be shared."

"He on whom heaven confers a sceptre knows not the weight till he bears it."

"He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be so; and insolence, if unpunished, increases!"

"He who has resolved to conquer or die is seldom conquered; such noble despair perishes with difficulty."

"Heaven often regulates effects by their causes, and pays the wicked what they have deserved."

"Here honor binds me, and I wish to satisfy it."