Authority and place demonstrate and try the tempers of men, by moving every passion and discovering every frailty. - Plutarch

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.

Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. "They are tall," said he, "and comely, but bear no fruit."

Even those virtues which nature had denied him were imitated by him so successfully that he won more confidence than those who actually possessed them.