Cicero: “People overturn the fundamental principles established by nature, when they divorce expediency from moral rectitude.”

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.

But for all cases we have one rule, with which I desire you to be perfectly familiar: that which seems expedient must not be morally wrong; or, if it is morally wrong, it must not seem expedient.

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.

Such acts of generosity are not to be so highly esteemed as those which are performed with judgment, deliberation, and mature consideration.