To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches. - Cicero

The things possessing most utility also have the greatest amount of dignity, and indeed frequently of beauty also. In temples and colonnades, the pillars are to support the structure, yet they are as dignified in appearance as they are useful. Yonder pediment of the Capitol and those of the other temples are the product not of beauty but of actual necessity; for it was in calculating how to make the rainwater fall off the two sides of the roof that the dignified design of the gables resulted as a by-product of the needs of the structure — with the consequence that even if one were erecting a citadel in heave, where no rain could fall, it would be thought certain to be entirely lacking in dignity without a pediment.

But when there is mutual fear between one individual and another, and between one class and another, then, because no one can rely on his own strength, a kind of pact is made between the people and the powerful few. From that emerges the compromise recommended by Scipio, i.e. the mixed form of government. You see, the mother of justice is not nature, nor good intentions, but weakness. For when one is faced with a threefold choice: (a) to do injury

Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.'