Then surely his words should be understood.

Queen Christina says of him, in one of her maxims, that "Cicero was the only coward that was capable of great actions." The Queen of Sweden, whose sentences are never worth very much, has known her history well enough to have learned that Cicero's acts were noble, but has not understood the meaning of words sufficiently to extract from Cicero's own expressions their true bearing.

The bravest of us all, if he is in high place, has to doubt much before he can know what true courage will demand of him; and these doubts the man of words will express, if there be given to him an _alter ego_ such as Cicero had in Atticus.
In reference to the biography of Mr Forsyth I must, in justice both to him and to Cicero, quote one passage from the work: "Let those who, like De Quincey,[26] Mommsen, and others, speak disparagingly of Cicero, and are so lavish in praise of Caesar, recollect that Caesar never was troubled by a conscience." Here it is that we find that advance almost to Christianity of which I have spoken, and that superiority of mind being which makes Cicero the most fit to be loved of all the Romans.
It is hard for a man, even in regard to his own private purposes, to analyze the meaning of a conscience, if he put out of question all belief in a future life.

Why should a man do right if it be not for a reward here or hereafter?
Why should anything be right--or wrong?
The Stoics tried to get over the difficulty by declaring that if a man could conquer all his personal desires he would become, by doing so, happy, and would therefore have achieved the only end at which a man can rationally aim.

The school had many scholars, but probably never a believer.