["I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,
yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude."
--Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]

No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow so
wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise
of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything
can be chosen. Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering
an end; let us follow constantly after reason; let the public approbation
follow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon fortune, we
have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that. Even
though I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should,
however, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the end of
the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest utility.

"Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus,
ut honesta magis juvarent."

["This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should
be the most agreeable."--Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 12.]

The mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest: "O God, thou
wilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy me;
but, however, I will hold my rudder straight."--[Seneca, Ep., 85.]--
I have seen in my time a thousand men supple, halfbred, ambiguous, whom
no one doubted to be more worldly-wise than I, lose themselves, where I
have saved myself:

"Risi successus posse carere dolos."