The honours paid to illustrious men had not continued to exist after their death, had the souls of these very men not done something to make us retain our recollection of them beyond the ordinary time.
Cicero suggests that the lasting honors bestowed upon great individuals are evidence of their souls' enduring impact beyond death.
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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.
For nothing is more commendable, nothing more becoming in a pre-eminently great man than courtesy and forbearance.
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.
From this attitude come greatness of soul and a sense of superiority to worldly conditions.
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