Scipio foresaw the evils with which Rome would be visited when no Carthage should be in existence for her to contend with.

If a nation have nothing to oppose or to fear without, it cannot escape decay and concussion within.

Universal triumph and absolute security soon betray a State into abandonment of that discipline, civil and military, by which its victories were secured.

If the time should ever come when this island shall have no more formidable enemies by land than it has at this moment by sea, the extinction of all that it previously contained of good and great would soon follow.

Indefinite progress, undoubtedly, there ought to be somewhere; but let that be in knowledge, in science, in civilization, in the increase of the numbers of the people, and in the augmentation of their virtue and happiness.