Pax optima rerum Quas homini novisse datum est; pax una triumphis Innumeris potior; pax custodire salutem Et cives æquare potens. SILIUS ITALICUS, _Punica_, Lib. XI. vv. 592-595. * * * * * Sed majoris est gloriæ _ipsa bella verbo occidere_ quam homines ferro, et acquirere vel obtinere pacem pace, non bello.--AUGUSTINI _Epistola_ CCLXII., _ad Darium Comitem_. * * * * * Certainly, if all who look upon themselves as men, not so much from the shape of their bodies as because they are endowed with reason, would listen awhile unto Christ's wholesome and peaceable decrees, and not, puffed up with arrogance and conceit, rather believe their own opinions than his admonitions, the whole world long ago (turning the use of iron into milder works) should have lived in most quiet tranquillity, and have met together in a firm and indissoluble league of most safe concord.--ARNOBIUS AFER, _Adversus Gentes_, Lib. I. c. 6. * * * * * And so for the first time [three hundred years after the Christian era] the meek and peaceful Jesus became a God of Battle, and the cross, the holy sign of Christian redemption, a banner of bloody strife. This irreconcilable incongruity between the symbol of universal peace and the horrors of war, in my judgment, is conclusive against the miraculous or supernatural character of the transaction [the vision of Constantine].--I was agreeably surprised to find that Mosheim concurred in these sentiments, for which I will readily encounter the charge of Quakerism.--MILMAN, _History of Christianity_, Book III. chap. 1. * * * * * When you see fighting, be peaceable; for a peaceable disposition shuts the door of contention. Oppose kindness to perverseness; the sharp sword will not cut soft silk. By using sweet words and gentleness you may lead an elephant with a hair.--SAADI, _The Gulistan_, translated by Francis Gladwin, Chap. III. Tale 28. * * * * * Si l'on vous disait que tous les chats d'un grand pays se sont assemblés par milliers dans une plaine, et qu'après avoir miaulé tout leur saoul, ils se sont jetés avec fureur les uns sur les autres, et ont joué ensemble de la dent et de la griffe, que de cette mêlée il est demeuré de part et d'autre neuf à dix mille chats sur la place, qui ont infecté l'air à dix lieues de là par leur puanteur, ne diriez-vous pas, "Voilà le plus abominable sabbat dont on ait jamais oui parler"? Et si les loups en faisaient de même, quels hurlements! quelle boucherie! Et si les uns ou les autres vous disaient _qu'ils aiment la gloire_, ... ne ririez-vous pas de tout votre coeur de l'ingénuité de ces pauvres bêtes?--LA BRUYÈRE, _Les Caractères: Des Jugements_.