Therefore, amid all the present most awful calamities I yet flatter myself that I have won this good out of evil--that I may commit to written form matters not at all familiar to our countrymen but still very much worth their knowing.
In a time of national crisis, Cicero expresses his belief that he can derive good from evil by writing about important, unfamiliar subjects for his countrymen.
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For we contend, for example, with a fellow-citizen in one way, if he is a personal enemy, in another, if he is a rival: with the rival it is a struggle for office and position, with the enemy for life and honour.
There are, on the other hand, two kinds of injustice--the one, on the part of those who inflict wrong, the other on the part of those who, when they can, do not shield from wrong those upon whom it is being inflicted.
For self-control is the foe of the passions, and the passions are the handmaids of pleasure.
Still, I do not mean to find fault with the accumulation of property, provided it hurts nobody, but unjust acquisition of it is always to be avoided.
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