"I prefer open attacks to the silly praises and flatteries of friends, which are really paid for." "Does your Reverence think--" The old man regarded him sadly.

"Keep it clearly before you," he answered, gasping for breath.

"Our power will last as long as it is believed in.

If they attack us, the government will say, 'They attack them because they see in them an obstacle to their liberty, so then let us preserve them.'" "But if it should listen to them?
Sometimes the government--" "It will not listen!" "Nevertheless, if, led on by cupidity, it should come to wish for itself what we are taking in--if there should be some bold and daring one--" "Then woe unto that one!" Both remained silent for a time, then the sick man continued: "Besides, we need their attacks, to keep us awake; that makes us see our weaknesses so that we may remedy them.

Exaggerated flattery will deceive us and put us to sleep, while outside our walls we shall be laughed at, and the day in which we become an object of ridicule, we shall fall as we fell in Europe.