“Time obliterates the fictions of opinion and confirms the decisions of nature.”

“For he (Cato) gives his opinion as if he were in Plato's Republic, not in Romulus' cesspool.”

“As for myself, I can only exhort you to look on Friendship as the most valuable of all human possessions, no other being equally suited to the moral nature of man, or so applicable to every state and circumstance, whether of prosperity or adversity, in which he can possibly be placed. But at the same time I lay it down as a fundamental axiom that "true Friendship can only subsist between those who are animated by the strictest principles of honour and virtue." When I say this, I would not be thought to adopt the sentiments of those speculative moralists who pretend that no man can justly be deemed virtuous who is not arrived at that state of absolute perfection which constitutes, according to their ideas, the character of genuine wisdom. This opinion may appear true, perhaps, in theory, but is altogether inapplicable to any useful purpose of society, as it supposes a degree of virtue to which no mortal was ever capable of rising.”

“En un mot, nos mains tâchent de faire dans la nature, pour ainsi dire, une autre nature.”

“The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.”

“True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.”

“In times of war, the law falls silent.Silent enim leges inter arma”