Cicero: “Fire and water themselves, to use a common expression, are not of more universal use than friendship.”

For they secure one sort of justice, to be sure, in that they do no positive wrong to anyone, but they fall into the opposite injustice; for hampered by their pursuit of learning they leave to their fate those whom they ought to defend.

Thus apparent expediency is outweighed when placed in the balance against moral rectitude.

And it is a great man's duty in troublous times to single out the guilty for punishment, to spare the many, and in every turn of fortune to hold to a true and honourable course.

Now, those who care for the interests of a part of the citizens and neglect another part, introduce into the civil service a dangerous element--dissension and party strife.