That statesman is indeed happy who can count as his friends the really honest and consistent, the true Patriots, and the men of honorable thought.

Happy are those who dwell apart from the harrowing tumults of public life!

Pleasures take to themselves wings and fly away; true knowledge remains forever.

The fabled origin of the laurel is this. Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, offended by the persecutions of Apollo, implored succour of the gods, who changed her into a laurel tree. Apollo crowned his head with the leaves and ordered that forever after, the tree should be sacred to him.

Men need knowledge in order to overpower their passions and master their prejudices.

Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character, and then he is never made radically better for its influence.