What we call people’s wealth and power are in fact very short-lived and fragile things, like a child’s toys. They come to us suddenly,...

However, to return to Plato, though the stream of his words flows as noiselessly as oil, he none the less attains sublimity. You have...

The ambition of Julius Caesar: It is said that another time, when free from business in Spain, after reading some part of the history of...

It was this same princess by whom a remarkable deception was planned. She had her tomb constructed in the upper part of one of the principal gateways of the city, high above the heads of the passers-by, with this inscription cut upon it: ‘If there be one among my successors on the throne of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let him open my tomb, and take as much as he chooses – not, however, unless he be truly in want, for it will not be for his good.’ This tomb continued u

…. yet he who does not so much as desire others’ praises, seems to me more perfectly virtuous, than he who is always extolling himself. A mind free from ambition is a main help to political gentleness; ambition, on the contrary, is hard-hearted, and the greatest fomenter of envy.

For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire.

Everything that you already have seems small in your sight, but everything that I have seems important to me. Your strong desire is insatiate, mine is already satisfied. The same thing happens to the children who put their hand down into a narrow-necked jar and try to take out figs and nuts: if they get their hand full, they can’t get it out, and then they cry. Drop a few and you will get it out. And so do you too drop your desire; do not set your heart upon many things and y