Walter Savage Landor

“ Vipsania.
Tiberius! the altars, the gods, the destinies, are between us I will take it from this hand; thus, thus shall he receive it.
Tiberius.
Raise up thy face, my beloved! I must not shed tears. Augustus! Livia! ye shall not extort them from me. Vipsania, I may kiss thy head for I have saved it. Thou sayest nothing. I have wronged thee; ay?
Vipsania.
Ambition does not see the earth she treads on: the rock and the herbage are of one substance to her. Let me excuse you to my heart, O Tiberius. It has many wants; this is the first and greatest. ”

“ Could Livia, could your mother, could she who was so kind to -
Tiberius.
The wife of Caesar did it. But hear me now, hear me: be calm as I am. No weaknesses are such as those of a mother who loves her only son immoderately; and none are so easily worked upon from without. Who knows what impulses she received? She is very, very kind; but she regards me only; and that which at her bidding is to encompass and adorn me. All the weak look after power, protectress of weakness. Thou art a woman, O Vipsania! ”

“ It removes from us those that can help us, and brings against us those that can injure us: whence it opposes the great principle of our nature, self-love, and endangers not only our well-being but our being. Reason is then the most perfect, when it enables us the most benefit society: reason is then the most deranged, when there is that over it which disables a man from benefiting his fellow men.. ”