When Virtue has reared her head and shewn the light of her countenance, and seen and recognised the same light in another, she gravitates towards it, and in her turn welcomes that which the other has to shew; and from it springs up a flame which you may call love or friendship as you please.
From a philosophical dialogue on friendship, explaining how virtue attracts like virtue to form bonds.
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For nothing is more commendable, nothing more becoming in a pre-eminently great man than courtesy and forbearance.
But for the most part, people are led to wrong-doing in order to secure some personal end; in this vice, avarice is generally the controlling motive.
For whereas there are many, as I have said before, who place the achievements of war above those of peace, so one may find many to whom adventurous, hot-headed counsels seem more brilliant and more impressive than calm and well-considered…
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