Xenophon

“Moderation in all things is the best policy.”

“In my experience, men who respond to good fortune with modesty and kindness are harder to find than those who face adversity with courage.”

“The gods' custom is to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.”

“The sweetest of all sounds is praise.”

“Willing obedience always beats forced obedience.”

“Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes.”

“Success always calls for greater generosity—though most people, lost in the darkness of their own examples, believe success bids them to be greedy.”

“Anything forced is not beautiful.”

“There is small risk a man will be regarded with contempt by those he represents if they know that he will be lenient in his verdict when they are guilty of wrongdoing, and praise them when they do well.”

“The true test of a leader is whether his followers will adhere to his cause from their own volition, enduring the most arduous hardships without being forced to do so.”

“No human being will ever know the truth, for even if they happened to say it by chance, they would not know they had done so.”

“Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety.”

“Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.”

“The man who doesn't know how to be silent is unable to speak.”

“A man may be a tough, concentrated, successful money-maker and never contribute to his country anything more than a horrible example.”