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-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.
Marcus Livius Drusus
[Called Drusus Junior; an ambitious politician; tribune of the people, 91 B.C.; desired to extend Roman citizenship, but saw his laws vetoed by the senate; conspiring, therefore, against the government, he was assassinated, 91 or 90 B.C.]
Build it so that every citizen may behold every action I perform.
When his architect proposed to build a house for him in which he could screen himself from observation.“Hardly a man will you find,” says Seneca, “who could live with his door open.” Talleyrand said, according to Stendhal, “The private life of a citizen ought to have a wall around it” (La vie privée d’un citoyen doit être murée). Fournier suggests that it was simple prudence for the diplomatist to make himself the apostle of discretion.—L’Esprit, 437. “Choose out the wisest, brightest, noblest of mankind,” said Lord Erskine, “and how many of them could bear to be pursued into the little corners of their lives?”
