The best is, in war or faction or ordinary vindictive life, not to take sides.
Leave it for children, and the emotional rabble of the streets, to back their horse or support a brawler.
But if you are forced into it: remember that good and evil are as common as air, and like air
By the panting belligerents; the moral indignation that hoarsens orators is mostly a fool.
Hold your nose and compromise; keep a cold mind.
Fight, if needs must; hate no one.
Do as God does,
Or the tragic poets: they crush their man without hating him, their Lear or Hitler, and often save without love.
As for these quarrels, they are like the moon, recurrent and fantastic.
They have their beauty but night's is better.
It is better to be silent than make a noise.
It is better to strike dead than strike often.
It is better not to strike.
