Cato the Younger
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Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis ('of Utica'; 95 BC – April 46 BC), also known as Cato the Younger (Latin: Cato Minor), was an influential conservative Roman senator during the late Republic. His conservative principles were focused on the preservation of what he saw as old Roman values in decline. A noted orator and a follower of Stoicism, his scrupulous honesty and professed respect for tradition gave him a powerful political following which he mobilised against powerful generals of his day, including Julius Caesar and Pompey.
Quotes
[edit]- Bear in mind, that if through toil you accomplish a good deed, that toil will quickly pass from you, the good deed will not leave you so long as you live; but if through pleasure you do anything dishonourable, the pleasure will quickly pass away, that dishonourable act will remain with you for ever.
- In the speech which he delivered Numantiae apud Equites ('At Numantia to the Knights'); quoted by Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, XVI, i, 4
- John C. Rolfe, ed. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, Vol. 3, LCL 212 (1928), p. 131
- In the speech which he delivered Numantiae apud Equites ('At Numantia to the Knights'); quoted by Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, XVI, i, 4
- I will begin to speak when I am not going to say what were better left unsaid.
- Nay, men, if any of you had heeded what I was ever foretelling and advising, ye would now neither be fearing a single man nor putting your hopes in a single man.
Quotes about Cato the Younger
[edit]- It is worth observing, how we feel ourselves affected in reading the characters of Cæsar, and Cato, as they are so finely drawn and contrasted in Salust. In one, the ignoscendo, largiundo; in the other, nil largiundo. In one, the miseris perfugium; in the other, malis perniciem. In the latter we have much to admire, much to reverence, and perhaps something to fear; we respect him, but we respect him at a distance. The former makes us familiar with him; we love him, and he leads us whither he pleases.
- Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (2nd ed. 1759), pp. 206-207
- Victrix causa deis placuit, sed vieta Catoni.
- The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the conquered one Cato.
- Lucan, Pharsalia, I, 128
- This line is associated with the Lost Cause of the Confederacy and inscribed on the base of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
- Cabell Smith, "Inscriptions on Arlington Confederate Monument", Confederate Veteran, vol. 20 (1920), p. 124
- The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the conquered one Cato.
- Unconquer’d Cato, virtuous in extreme.
- James Thomson, Winter (1726)
