It is all over with the republic.

Virtue is necessary to a republic. [ Montesquieu ]

I have considered the pension list of the republic a roll of honor. [ Grover Cleveland ]

All thinkers have about the same principles, and form but one republic. [ Voltaire ]

A republic is not founded on virtue, but on the ambition of its citizens. [ Voltaire ]

O poets! what injury you have done us, and how right Plato was to banish you from his republic! How your ambrosia has rendered more bitter our absinth! How have we found our lives more barren and more desolate, after having turned our eyes toward the sublime perspectives which your dreams have opened in the infinite! [ T. Gautier ]

Threescore years and ten! It is the Scriptural statute of limitations. After that, you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, nor any bugle-tail but lights out. You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer - and without prejudice - for they are not legally collectable. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]