Wisdom Sayings

I would rather be first in a small village in Gaul than second in Rome.

I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.

I consider the promotion of the people's welfare my highest duty, and its exercise is grounded in work and constant application.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

A cucumber is bitter. Throw it away. There are briars in the road. Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, 'And why were such things made?'

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

All warfare is based on deception.

I have nothing, therefore I have everything.

I have made the foreign lands like women before me.

If a man puts out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time.

Grass shall never grow where my horse has trodden.

You are not a fish; how do you know what makes a fish happy?

A man must not be without shame. The shame of being without shame is the shame of being without shame indeed.

If a man's desires are not regulated by the Way, he cannot but dispute with others.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

The snake lurks hidden in the grass.

The bold adventurer succeeds the best.

I returned to these sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which have been in ruins for a long time, the images which used to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries.