"Virtue should be common to both husbandman and monarch.
"Apply thyself to the trouble of preventing crimes in order to lessen the trouble of punishing them.
"Under the good kings Yao and Xu the Chinese were good; under the bad kings Kie and Chu they were wicked.
"Do to others as to thyself.
"Love all men; but cherish honest people. Forget injuries, and never kindnesses.
"I have seen men incapable of study; I have never seen them incapable of virtue."
Let us admit that there is no legislator who has proclaimed truths more useful to the human race.
A host of Greek philosophers have since taught an equally pure moral philosophy. If they had limited themselves to their empty systems of natural philosophy, their names would be pronounced to-day in mockery only. If they are still respected, it is because they were just and that they taught men to be so.
One cannot read certain passages of Plato, and notably the admirable exordium of the laws of Zaleucus, without feeling in one's heart the love of honourable and generous actions. The Romans have their Cicero, who alone is worth perhaps all the philosophers of Greece. After him come men still more worthy of respect, but whom one almost despairs of imitating; Epictetus in bondage, the Antonines and the Julians on the throne.
Which is the citizen among us who would deprive himself, like Julian, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, of all the delicacies of our flabby and effeminate lives? who would sleep as they did on the ground? who would impose on himself their frugality? who, as they did, would march barefoot and bareheaded at the head of the armies, exposed now to the heat of the sun, now to the hoar-frost? who would command all their passions as they did? There are pious men among us; but where are the wise men? where are the resolute, just and tolerant souls?