Wat kan in de bezigheden der mensen van belang lijken voor een man die de eeuwigheid voor ogen houdt en zich bewust is van de uitgestrektheid van het… - Cicero

Ability without honor is useless.

Did not he, then, who, if he had died at that time, would have died in all his glory, owe all the great and terrible misfortunes into which he subsequently fell to the prolongation of his life at that time?

Nevertheless, let us imagine that you could have killed me. That, Senators, is what a favour from gangsters amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him! If that is a true favour, then those who killed Caesar, after he had spared them, would never have been regarded as so glorious — and they are men whom you yourself habitually describe as noble. But the mere abstention from a dreadful crime is surely no sort of favour. In the situation in which this "favour" placed me, my dominant feelings ought not to have been pleasure because you did not kill me, but sorrow because you could have done so with impunity. However, let us even assume that it was a favour; at any rate the best favour that a gangster could confer. Still, in what respect can you call me ungrateful? Were my protests against the downfall of our country wrong, because you might think they showed ingratitude?