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“A nation can
survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot
survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less
formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly.
But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly
whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of
government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor, he
speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their
face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies
deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he
works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of
a city, he seeks to infect the foundation so that it can no longer
resist. A murderer is less to be feared.” —
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator and statesman, circa 45 B.C.
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