[25]
Therefore, I was concerned when I
heard that celebrated and wise saying of yours, “I have lived long
enough to satisfy either nature or glory.” Sufficiently long, if
you please: for nature, and I will add, if you like, for glory; but, which
is of the greatest consequence of all, certainly not long enough for your
country. Give up then, I entreat you, that wisdom of learned men shown in
their contempt of death; do not be wise at our expense. For it has often
come to my ears that you are in the habit of using that expression much too
frequently—that you have lived long enough for yourself. I dare
say you have; but I could only be willing to hear you say so if you lived
for yourself alone, or if you had been born for yourself alone. But as it
is—as your exploits have brought the safety of all the citizens
and the entire republic to a dependence on you,—you are so far
from having completed your greatest labours, that you have not even laid the
foundations which you design to lay. And will you then limit your life, not
by the welfare of the republic, but by the tranquillity of your own mind?
What will you do, if that is not even sufficient for your glory, of
which—wise man though you be—you will not deny that you
are exceedingly desirous?
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