Those who receive with most pains and difficulty, remember best; every new think they learn, being, as it were, burnt and branded in on their minds. - Plutarch

We ought indeed to shrink from and feel shame at what is base; but the nature which is over-cautious to avoid blame may be gentle and kindly, but cannot be great.

Lycurgus, who ordered that a great piece of money should be but of an inconsiderable value, on the contrary would allow no discourse to be current which did not contain in few words a great deal of useful and curious sense.

But the Lacedaemonians, who make it their first principle of action to serve their country's interest, know not any thing to be just or unjust by any measure but that.