“Even the wolves cease their depredations, when they have secured all the prey.”

— Alessandro Pepoli

Si fermano anche i lupi quando hanno afferrato la preda.
La Scommessa, Act I., Sc. I. — (Il Marchese.). Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 417.

Original

Si fermano anche i lupi quando hanno afferrato la preda.

Act I., Sc. I. — Il Marchese
La Scommessa

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Do you have more details about the quote "Even the wolves cease their depredations, when they have secured all the prey." by Alessandro Pepoli?

Alessandro Pepoli 3

Italian writer 1757–1796

Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist

"On Living with Dignity in China"
No Enemies, No Hate: Selected Essays and Poems
Context: Admittedly, righteousness is weak unless it is backed by power, but power devoid of righteousness is evil. If most people cast their lot with the latter, then evil will prey forever upon humankind, as wolves and tigers prey upon lambs.

“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

“The only other mammalian carnivores that take outsized prey are lions, hyenas, wolves, and African wild dogs. Each… has an exceptionally advanced social life, prominently featuring the pursuit of prey in coordinated packs.”

Edward O. Wilson book On Human Nature

On Human Nature (1978), Ch.4 Emergence

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

This quotation appeared in an article by Margaret Thatcher, "The Moral Foundations of Society" ( Imprimis, March 1995 https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-moral-foundations-of-society/), which was an edited version of a lecture Thatcher had given at Hillsdale College in November 1994. Here is the actual passage from Thatcher's article:
<blockquote>[M]ore than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians' dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.</blockquote>
The italicized passage above originated with Thatcher. In characterizing the Athenians in the article she cited Sir Edward Gibbon, but she seems to have been paraphrasing statements in "Athens' Failure," a chapter of classicist Edith Hamilton's book The Echo of Greece (1957), pp. 47–48 http://www.ergo-sum.net/books/Hamilton_EchoOfGreece_pp.47-48.jpg).
Misattributed

“No state of mind, not even positive suffering, is more painful than the want of interesting objects. The vacant soul preys on itself, and often rushes with impatience from the security which demands no effort, to the brink of peril.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

War (1816)
Context: One of the great springs of war may be found in a very strong and general propensity of human nature, in the love of excitement, of emotion, of strong interest; a propensity which gives a charm to those bold and hazardous enterprises which call forth all the energies of our nature. No state of mind, not even positive suffering, is more painful than the want of interesting objects. The vacant soul preys on itself, and often rushes with impatience from the security which demands no effort, to the brink of peril.