* * * * *
_“Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch. Therefore it
is good to be conversant with them; especially the books of such
as themselves have been actors upon the stage.”--Sir Francis
Bacon._
* * * * *
_“At this moment, Europe, which fears neither God nor devil,
grovels in terror before a little man hardly five feet in height;
who, clad in a cocked hat and grey great-coat and mounted upon a
white horse, plods along through mud and darkness; followed by
the most enthusiastic, most devoted and most efficient band of
cut-throats and robbers, the world has ever seen.”_
* * * * *
_“Many good soldiers are but poor generals.”--Hannibal._
* * * * *
_“No soldier serving under a victorious commander, ever has
enough of war.”--Caesar._
* * * * *
_“Officers always should be chosen from the nobility and never
from the lower orders of society; for the former, no matter how
dissolute, always retain a sense of honor, while the latter,
though guilty of atrocious actions, return to their homes
without compunction and are received by their families without
disapprobation.”--Frederic the Great._
* * * * *
At the terrible disaster of Cannae, the Patrician Consul Aemilius
Paulus and 80,000 Romans died fighting sword in hand; while
the Plebian Consul, Varro, fled early in the battle. Upon the
return of the latter to Rome, the Senate, instead of ordering his
execution, with withering sarcasm formally voted him its thanks
and the thanks of the Roman people, “that he did not despair of
the Republic.”
* * * * *
_“Among us we have a man of singular character--one Phocion.
He seems not to know that he lives in our modern age and at
incomparable Athens. He is poor, yet is not humiliated by his
poverty; he does good, yet never boasts of it; and gives advice,
though he is certain it will not be followed. He possesses talent
without ambition and serves the state without regard to his own
interest. At the head of the army, he contents himself with
restoring discipline and beating the enemy. When addressing the
assembly, he is equally unmoved by the disapprobation or the
applause of the multitude._
_“We laugh at his singularities and we have discovered an
admirable secret for revenging ourselves for his contempt. He
is the only general we have left--but we do not employ him; he
is the most upright and perhaps the most intelligent of our
counsellors--but we do not listen to him. It is true, we cannot
make him change his principles, but, by Heaven, neither shall he
induce us to change ours; and it never shall be said that by the
example of his superannuated virtues and the influence of his
antique teachings, Phocion was able to correct the most polished
and amiable people in the world.”--Callimedon._