During seasons of great pestilence men have often believed the prophecies of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come. Credulity is always… - Charles Mackay

Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later.

the dangerous practice of stock-jobbing, and would divert the genius of the nation from trade and industry. It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for a prospect of imaginary wealth. The great principle of the project was an evil of first-rate magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of the stock, by exciting and keeping up a general infatuation, and by promising dividends out of funds which could never be adequate to the purpose.

You have no enemies, you say?
Alas, my friend, the boast is poor.
He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done.

You’ve hit no traitor on the hip.
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip.
You’ve never turned the wrong to right.
You’ve been a coward in the fight.