[19]
Rejoice, then, in that admirable and virtuous disposition of yours; and enjoy
not only your fortune and glory, but also your own natural good qualities,
and amiable inclinations and manners; for those are the things which produce
the greatest fruit and pleasure to a wise man. When you call to mind your
other achievements, although you will often congratulate yourself on your
valour, still you will often have reason to thank your good fortune also.
But as often as you think of us whom you have chosen to live safely in the
republic as well as yourself you will be thinking at the same time of your
own exceeding kindness, of your own incredible liberality, of your own
unexampled wisdom; qualities which I will venture to call not only the
greatest, but the only real blessings. For there is so much splendour in
genuine glory, so much dignity in magnanimity and real practical wisdom,
that these qualities appear to be given to a man by virtue, while all other
advantages seem only lent to them by fortune.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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