Stumbled upon this in my list of quotes... true then, true now.
Last edited Tue Sep 6, 2022, 02:26 PM - Edit history (1)
"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 carries his banners openly.
But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself.
For the traitor appears not a traitor...He speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, 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 infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."
-- Taylor Caldwell, playwright, often incorrectly attributed to Cicero
Hat tip to mahatmakanejeeves, in post 10 below, who researched the quote and pointed out the correct attribution.
= new reply since forum marked as read
For critics of President Trump, an old quotation about "treason from within" was relevant in 2018. But who actually came up with it?
Dan MacGuill
Published 31 July 2018
Claim
The Roman orator Cicero issued a warning about a nation's being destroyed by "treason from within."
Rating
Misattributed
{snip}
Against that background, an old warning about a nation’s being destroyed by “treason from within,” purporting to be from the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (better known as “Cicero”), found popularity on social media after a Facebook page called “Impeach Trump, Impeach Pence, Keep Impeaching” posted it in the form of a meme on 14 July 2018, two days before the Helsinki summit:
{snip}
Although these words are now widely attributed to Cicero, in fact they originated in the 20th century, with novelist Taylor Caldwell’s 1965 book A Pillar of Iron. Even though that work often drew directly from the recorded speeches and letters of Cicero for its dialogue, it was nonetheless a work of fiction, and the warning from Cicero about “treason from within” was an invention of Caldwell’s and not a reproduction of Cicero’s own words.
{snip}
“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 carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst 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 a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, 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 the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
― Taylor Caldwell, A Pillar of Iron
{snip}
My source (and thus my notes) was wrong. I’m glad to correct my error.
Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson.
As Cleopatra said,
Full disclosure: I have no idea who said that. I got it from https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decoding-Secrets-Egyptian-Hieroglyphs/dp/B0752RJ1QJ
