When I review Xerxes' achievements, I praise him, not for having yoked the Hellespont, but for having crossed it. But I can see that Nero will neither sail through the Isthmus nor complete his digging.

Just as an individual of pre-eminent worth transforms democracy into a monarchy of the best man, even so the rule of one man, if in all things it has an eye to the common welfare, is democracy.

Nero may have understood how to tune his cithern, but he disgraced his imperial office both by slackening and by tightening the strings.

Apollonius of Tyana Quotes