"What spectator... would not exclaim... that through Fortune the foreign host was prevailing beyond its deserts, but through Virtue the Hellenes were holding out beyond their ability? And if the ones gains the upper hand, this will be the work of Fortune or of some jealous deity or of divine retribution; but if the others prevail, it will be Virtue and daring, friendship and fidelity, that will win the guerdon of victory? These were, in fact, the only support that Alexander had with him at this time, since Fortune had put a barrier between him and the rest of his forces and equipment, fleets, horse, and camp. Finally, the Macedonians routed the barbarians, and, when they had fallen, pulled down their city on their heads."

“We see that kindness or humanity has a larger field than bare justice to exercise itself in; law and justice we cannot, in the nature of things, employ on others than men; but we may extend our goodness and charity even to irrational creatures; and such acts flow from a gentle nature, as water from an abundant spring. It is doubtless the part of a kind-natured man to keep even worn-out horses and dogs, and not only take care of them when they are foals and whelps, but also when they are grown old.”

“Such men ever, whether they have some business to transact, or have taken upon them some office, or are in some critical conjuncture, put before their eyes the example of noble men, and consider what Plato would have done on the occasion, what Epaminondas would have said, how Lycurgus or Agesilaus would have dealt; that so, adjusting and re-modelling themselves, as it were, at their mirrors, they may correct any ignoble expression, and repress any ignoble passion.”

“As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity.”

“When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.”

“It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn a limp.”

“You ask of me then for what reason it was that Pythagoras abstained from eating of flesh. I for my part do much admire in what humor, with what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and having set before people courses of ghastly corpses and ghosts, could give those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before lowed, cried, moved, and saw; how his sight could endure the blood of slaughtered, flayed, and mangled bodies; how his smell could bear their scent; and how the very nastiness happened not to offend the taste, while it chewed the sores of others, and participated of the saps and juices of deadly wounds.”