Status Updates From Le Storie (Vol. I-II)

Cleon again:
“Great good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent: in most cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity.”

From the speech of the demagogue Cleon:

“Bad laws which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have no authority; unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than quick-witted insubordination; ordinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that

Words of the Mytilenian ambassador to Sparta seem apropos right now:

“It is not in Attica that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by which Attica is supported; and the Athenian revenue is drawn from the allies, and will become still larger if they reduce us; as not only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to theirs”