W. Lucas Collins

“ To me, when I consider the nature of the soul, there is far more difficulty and obscurity in forming a conception of what the soul is while in the body,—in a dwelling where it seems so little at home,—than of what it will be when it has escaped into the free atmosphere of heaven, which seems its natural abode". [1] And as the poet seems to us inspired, as the gifts of memory and eloquence seem divine, so is the soul itself, in its simple essence, a god dwelling in the breast of each of us. ”

“ If, twenty years ago, I declared in this house that death could never be said to have come before its time to a man who had been consul of Rome, with how much more truth, at my age, may I say it now! To me indeed, gentlemen of the Senate, death may well be a thing to be even desired, when I have done what I have done and reaped the honours I have reaped. Only two wishes I have,—the one, that at my death I may leave the Roman people free—the immortal gods can give me no greater boon than this ”

“ Although I am conscious, gentlemen, that it is a disgrace to me to show fear when I stand here to plead in behalf of one of the bravest of men;—and especially does such weakness ill become me, that when Milo himself is far more anxious about the safety of the state than about his own, I should be unable to bring to his defence the like magnanimous spirit;—yet this strange scene and strangely constituted court does terrify my eyes, for, turn them where I will, I look in vain for the ancient customs of the Forum, and the old style of public trials. ”

“ Stoics and Peripatetics are agreed at least on one point—that bodily pleasures fade into nothing before the splendours of virtue, and that to compare the two is like holding a candle against the sunlight, or setting a drop of brine against the waves of the ocean. Your Epicurean would have each man live in selfish isolation, engrossed in his private pleasures and pursuits. We, on the other hand, maintain that "Divine Providence has appointed the world to be a common city for men and gods", and each one of us to be a part of this vast social system. ”

“ Take away this confidence, destroy this safeguard for our Roman citizens—once establish the principle that there is no protection in the words, 'I am a citizen of Rome'—that praetor or other magistrate may with impunity sentence to what punishment he will a man who says he is a Roman citizen, merely because somebody does not know it for a fact; and at once, by admitting such a defence, you are shutting up against our Roman citizens all our provinces, all foreign states, despotic or independent—all the whole world, in short, which has ever lain open to our national enterprise beyond all". ”

“ The terrible days of Marius and Sylla had passed, only to leave behind a taste for blood and licence amongst the corrupt aristocracy and turbulent commons. There were men amongst the younger nobles quite ready to risk their lives in the struggle for absolute power; and the mob was ready to follow whatever leader was bold enough to bid highest for their support.
It is impossible here to do much more than glance at the well-known story of Catiline's conspiracy. It was the attempt of an able and desperate man to make himself and his partisans masters of Rome by a bloody revolution. ”

“ Then, as now, death was the great problem of humanity—"to die and go we know not where". The old belief in Elysium and Tartarus had died away; as Cicero himself boldly puts it in another place, such things were no longer even old wives' fables. Either death brought an absolute unconsciousness, or the soul soared into space. "Lex non poena mors"—"Death is a law, not a penalty"—was the ancient saying. It was, as it were, the close of a banquet or the fall of the curtain. "While we are, death is not; when death has come, we are not". ”

“ And he winds up the dialogue with the very beautiful apostrophe, one of the last utterances of the philosopher's heart, well known, yet not too well known to be here quoted:
"It likes me not to mourn over departing life, as many men, and men of learning, have done. Nor can I regret that I have lived, since I have so lived that I may trust I was not born in vain; and I depart out of life as out of a temporary lodging, not as out of my home. For nature has given it to us as an inn to tarry at by the way, not as a place to abide in. ”

“ Then comes the question, What is this nature that is so precious to each of us? Clearly it is compounded of body and mind, each with many virtues of its own; but as the mind should rule the body, so reason, as the dominant faculty, should rule the mind. Virtue itself is only "the perfection of this reason", and, call it what you will, genius or intellect is something divine. ”