Status Updates From Discourses on Livy

“Men are wont to worry in evil and to become bored with good, and from both of these two passions the same effects arise. For whenever engaging in combat through necessity is taken from men, they engage in combat through ambition, which is so powerful in human breasts that it never abandons them at whatever rank they rise to. The cause is that nature has created men so that they are able to desire everything and

“For as good customs have need of laws to maintain themselves, so laws have need of good customs so as to be observed.”

“This makes new laws insufficient because the orders, which remain fixed, corrupt them.”

“For a prudent individual knows many goods that do not have in themselves evident reasons with which one can persuade others. This wise men who wish to take away this difficulty have recourse to God.”