By union the smallest states thrive. By discord the greatest are destroyed.

But the case has proved that to be true which Appius says in his songs, that each man is the maker of his own fate.

It is better to use fair means and fail, than foul and conquer.

They envy the distinction I have won; let them therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it.

Harmony makes small things grow; lack of it makes great things decay.

All this care for the world, we must believe, is taken by the Gods without any act of will or labor. As bodies which possess some power produce their effects by merely existing: e.g. the sun gives light and heat by merely existing; so, and far more so, the providence of the Gods acts without effort to itself and for the good of the objects of its forethought. This solves the problems of the Epicureans , who argue that what is divine neither has trouble itself nor gives trouble to others.

Now the myths represent the Gods themselves and the goodness of the Gods subject always to the distinction of the speakable and the unspeakable, the revealed and the unrevealed, that which is clear and that which is hidden: since, just as the Gods have made the goods of sense common to all, but those of intellect only to the wise, so the myths state the existence of Gods to all, but who and what they are only to those who can understand.