It still applies today!
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
Marcus Tullius Cicero (pronounced /ˈsɪsɨroʊ/; Classical Latin: [ˈkikeroː]; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists.
Source: Attributed. 58 BC, Speech in the Roman Senate
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.
Source: Attributed. 55 BC
The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
Cicero’s Six Mistakes of Man.
- The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.
- The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
- Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.
- Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
- Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying.
- Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
