Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.
If anyone cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of feeling at all. From the enduring wonder of the heavens flows all grace and power. If anyone thinks it is mindless then he himself must be out of his mind.
We can more easily avenge an injury than requite a kindness; on this account, because there is less difficulty in getting the better of the wicked than in making one's self equal with the good.
The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men.
To reduce man to the duties of his own city, and to disengage him from duties to the members of other cities, is to break the universal society of the human race.
For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate.