Cicero: “Thus in the stadium of life, it is not unfair for anyone to seek to obtain what is needful for his own advantage, but he…”

In the matter of a promise one must always consider the meaning and not the mere words.

Again, there are certain duties that we owe even to those who have wronged us.

The first office of justice is to keep one man from doing harm to another, unless provoked by wrong; and the next is to lead men to use common possessions for the common interests, private property for their own.

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.