I am afraid of our wasting that which we at present derive from moral causes, by laying down general principles when nobody will attend to them, and when in all probability they will be disregarded.
Morley expresses concern about the potential loss of moral authority if principles are disregarded in diplomacy.
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True merit once resigned, No trick nor feint will serve as well.
Yet he had prepared this document for the very purpose of tempting France into a declaration of war.
A rendering less apt for this occasion finds favour with some scholars, that true virtue can never be restored to those who have once fallen away from it.
Happy the man who from out the floods has fled the storm and found the haven; happy too is he who has surmounted toil and trouble.—Bacchae, 902-5.
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