Top 30 Quotes & Sayings by Cato the Younger

Never travel by sea when you can go by land.

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

This is my firm persuasion, that since the human soul exerts itself with so great activity, since it has such a remembrance of the best, such a concern for the future, since it is enriched with so many arts, sciences, and discoveries, it is impossible but the being which contains all these must be immortal.

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

Good-breeding is the art of showing men, by external signs, the internal regard we have for them. It arises from good sense, improved by conversing with good company.

I think the first wisdom is to restrain the tongue.

I would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign.

For some people there is no comfort without pain. Thus; we define salvation through suffering. Hence, why we choose people who we know aren't right for ourselves.

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

Some have said that it is not the business of private men to meddle with government--a bold and dishonest saying, which is fit to come from no mouth but that of a tyrant or a slave. To say that private men have nothing to do with government is to say that private men have nothing to do with their own happiness or misery; that people ought not to concern themselves whether they be naked or clothed, fed or starved, deceived or instructed, protected or destroyed.

In conversation avoid the extremes of forwardness and reserve.

A honest man is seldom a vagrant.

Regard not dreams, since they are but the images of our hopes and fears.

The best way to keep good acts in memory is to refresh them with new.

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

Speak briefly and to the point.

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

All have the gift of speech, but few are possessed of wisdom.

It is remarkable that men, when they differ in what they think considerable, will be apt to differ in almost everything else; their difference begets contradiction; contradiction begets heat; heat quickly rises into resentment, rage, and ill-will; thus they differ in affections, as they differ in judgment.

Blessed be they as virtuous, who when they feel their virile members swollen with lust, visit a brothel rather than grind at some husband's private mill.

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

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

Wise men are more dependent on fools than fools on wise men.

Do not expect good from another's death.

By Liberty I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. The Fruits of a Man's honest Industry are the just Rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbitrer of his own private Actions and Property.

In doing nothing men learn to do evil.

Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.

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

Should anyone attempt to deceive you by false expressions, and not be a true friend at heart, act in the same manner, and thus art will defeat art. [If you would catch a man let him think he is catching you.]

The cabbage surpasses all other vegetables. If, at a banquet, you wish to dine a lot and enjoy your dinner, then eat as much cabbage as you wish, seasoned with vinegar, before dinner, and likewise after dinner eat some half-dozen leaves. It will make you feel as if you had not eaten, and you can drink as much as you like.