The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.
A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.
Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.
