The whole country was crammed with moral lessons, and there was no morality.

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  Every usurer and scoundrel could buy himself, for a few pennies, the title of ‘great patriot of the people’.

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  There were many liberal laws, and no freedom at all.

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  Rascals are always sociable — more’s the pity!

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  Of wild beasts the worst bite is the slanderer’s; of tame ones, the flatterer’s.

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  A sensible man is ashamed to meddle in what he is not skilled in, while a senseless one thinks it a great shame if he does not poke his nose in everywhere.

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  From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.

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