No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself. No man is free who cannot command himself.

Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.

No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.

He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them.

A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible.

Only the poor are handicapped by honor.

The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have.

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.

The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.

No one can crave what truly harms him.

(Pericles:) And do not imagine that you are fighting about a simple issue, freedom or slavery; you have an empire to lose, and there is the danger to which the hatred of your imperial rule has exposed you.

Neither can you resign your power, if, at this crisis, any timorous or inactive spirit is for thus playing the honest man. For by this time your empire has become a tyranny which in the opinion of mankind may have been unjustly gained, but which cannot be safely surrendered.

(Book 2 Chapter 63.1-2)

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot retain it.