Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall.

History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something... History gives us the company of those who have done and suffered more than we have.

Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.

The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.

When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall.

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about