Marcus Tullius Cicero

“ No one is blessed with such a stream of genius, no one is endowed with such vigor and richness of eloquence, either as a speaker, or as a writer, as to be able, I will not say to extol, but even, O Caius Caesar, plainly to relate all your achievements. Nevertheless, I assert, and with your leave I maintain, that in all of them you never gained greater and truer glory than you have acquired this day. ”

“ For I cannot by any means pass over in silence such great humanity, such unprecedented and unheard-of clemency, such moderation in the exercise of supreme and universal power, such incredible and almost godlike wisdom. For now that Marcus Marcellus, O conscript fathers, has been restored to you and the republic, I think that not only his voice and authority are preserved and restored to you and to the republic, but my own also. ”

“ And from this you, in truth, must perceive what great credit there is in conferring a kindness, when there is such glory to be got even by receiving one. And he, too, is fortunate whose safety is now the cause of scarcely less joy to all other men than it will be to himself when he is informed of it. ”