The person engaged in action is always unconscionable; no one except the contemplative has a conscience. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Someone has said that world history must from time to time be rewritten. When has there been an epoch that made this as necessary as does the present one? You provided a superb example of how it should be done. The hatred of the Romans for the victor, even when he was kindly, presumption upon outmoded privileges, the desire for a different state of affairs without having anything better in view, irrational hopes, haphazard undertakings, alliances with no prospect of benefit, and whatever else is the unhappy retinue of such times—you have described all that magnificently, proving to us that such things really happened in those days.

Scientific knowledge helps us mainly because it makes the wonder to which we are called by nature rather more intelligible.

Die Kunst ist lang, das Leben kurz, das Urteil schwierig, die Gelegenheit flüchtig.