Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?
It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.
There is no evil that does not offer inducements. Vices tempt you by the rewards which they offer.
There's no delight in owning anything unshared.
The deep waters of time will flow over us: only a few men of genius will lift a head above the surface, and though doomed eventually to pass into the same silence, will fight against oblivion and for a long time hold their own.
Many things have fallen only to rise higher.