Cato the Younger Quotes

“Bitter are the roots of study, but how sweet their fruit.”

“Speak briefly and to the point.”

“I will begin to speak, when I have that to say which had not better be unsaid.”

“Consider it the greatest of all virtues to restrain the tongue.”

“Consider in silence whatever any one says: speech both conceals and reveals the inner soul of man.”

“In doing nothing men learn to do evil.”

“The primary virtue is: hold your tongue; who knows how to keep quiet is close to God.”

“Flee sloth; for the indolence of the soul is the decay of the body.”

“I know not what treason is, if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason...”

“Don't promise twice what you can do at once.”

“Everyone has the gift of speech. But few have the gift of wisdom.”

“When men choose to do nothing, they also learn to do evil.”

“He would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace.”

“He preferred to be good rather than to seem good, and so the less he sought glory, the more it attended on him.”

“This was the character and this the unswerving creed of austere Cato: to observe moderation, to hold to the goal, to follow nature, to devote his life to his country, to believe that he was born not for himself but for all the world.”

“I, who have been brought up in freedom, with the right of free speech, cannot in my old age change and learn slavery instead.”

“Choose therefore a Cato; or, if Cato seems too severe a model, choose some Laelius, a gentler spirit. Choose a master whose life, conversation, and soul-expressing face have satisfied you; picture him always to yourself as your protector or your pattern.”

“Caesar obtained glory through his giving, his assisting, and his pardoning, while Cato achieved this by engaging in no amount of bribery. The one was a shelter for those suffering, while the other was a bane for evil-doers.”

“In his eyes to conquer hunger was a feast, to ward off winter with a roof was a mighty palace, and to draw across his limbs the rough toga in the manner of the Roman citizen of old was a precious robe... for Rome he is father and for Rome he is husband, keeper of justice and guardian of strict morality.”

“No one did more than Cato to rage against his Republic's fall. Yet few did more, in the last accounting, to bring that fall to pass.”