Cato Quotes

• The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome.

  Joseph Addison

  Morning, Fate, Clouds

  Joseph Addison (1825). “Cato: A Tragedy, in Five Acts”, p.1

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• Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.

  Alexander Pope

  Law, Giving, Literature

  Alexander Pope (1794). “The works of Alexander Pope, with remarks and illustrations. By G. Wakefield”, p.245

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• Conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute have criticized Bush for his big increases in spending, which far exceed those of the Clinton era.

  Jim Cooper

  Thinking, Foundation, Tanks

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• History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business.

  James Thurber

  Government, Becoming, Scratches

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

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• Someone praising a man for his foolhardy bravery, Cato, the elder, said, ''There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.

  Plutarch

  Men, Differences, Bravery

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• After I am dead, I would rather have men ask why Cato has no monument than why he had one.

  Cato the Elder

  Men, Idols, Asks

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• He (Cato) never gave his opinion in the Senate upon any other point whatever, without adding these words, "And, in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed." ["Delenda est Carthago."]

  Plutarch

  Opinion, Should, Carthage

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• The well-known old remark of Cato, who used to wonder how two soothsayers could look one another in the face without laughing.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Two, Laughing, Religion

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• When confronted by a hungry wolf, it is unwise to goad the beast, as Cato would have us do. But it is equally unwise to imagine the snarling animal a friend and offer your hand, as Pompey does." "Perhaps you would have us climb a tree!

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Animal, Hands, History

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• He (Cato) used to say that in all his life he never repented but of three things. The first was that he had trusted a woman with a secret; the second that he had gone by sea when he might have gone by land; and the third, that had passed one day without having a will by him.

  Plutarch

  Sea, Land, Secret

  Plutarch (1844). “Lives, Translated from the Original Greek: With Notes, Historical and Critical; and a Life of Plutarch”, p.182

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• It is said that the propriety even of old Cato often yielded to the exciting influence of the grape.

  Horace

  Influence, Grapes, Said

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• Cato, being scurrilously treated by a low and vicious fellow, quietly said to him, "A contest between us is very unequal, for thou canst bear ill language with ease, and return it with pleasure; but to me it is unusual to hear, and disagreeable to speak it." There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.

  Seneca the Younger

  Lying, Laughing, Return

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• My contact with [Cato] was strange. They're ideologues, like Trotskyites. All questions must be seen and solved within the true faith of libertarianism, the idea of minimal government. And like Trotskyites, the guys from Cato can talk you to death.

  Nat Hentoff

  Government, Ideas, Guy

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• The agricultural population produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers,46 and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil designs.

  Pliny the Elder

  Courage, Men, Class

  "The Natural History of Pliny".

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• East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, whobuilt his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods;MCato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Growing Up, House, Gentleman

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• You would make a great teacher. (Grace) Commander to teacher. Why not call me Cato the Elder, and really insult me while you’re at it? (Julian)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Teacher, Grace, Why Not

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2002). “Fantasy Lover”, p.162, St. Martin's Paperbacks

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• I have been....moved to wonder whether my job is a job or a racket, whether economists, and particularly economic theorists, may not be in the position that Cicero, citing Cato, ascribed to the augurs of Rome-that they should cover their faces or burst into laugher when they met on the street.

  Frank Knight

  Jobs, Rome, May

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• Let the Seventy-forth Hunger Games begin, Cato, I think. Let them begin for real.

  Suzanne Collins

  Real, Thinking, Games

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• "I'm not their slave," the man mutters.
  "I am," I say. "That's why I killed Cato ... and he killed Thresh ... and he killed Clove ... and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their Games."

  Suzanne Collins

  Tired, Winning, Men

  Suzanne Collins (2010). “Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3)”, p.215, Scholastic Inc.

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• I pull the sleeping bag up to his chin and kiss his forehead, not for the audience, but for me. Because I'm so grateful that he's here, not dead by the stream as I'd thought. So glad I don't have to face Cato alone.

  Suzanne Collins

  Grateful, Sleep, Kissing

  Suzanne Collins (2009). “The Hunger Games”, p.318, Scholastic Inc.

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• Do it. Before they send those mutts back or something. I don't want to die like Cato," he says. “Then you shoot me," I say furiously, shoving the weapons back at him. "You shoot me and go home and live with it!" And as I say it, I know death right here, right now would be the easier of the two.

  Suzanne Collins

  Home, Two, Mutts

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games Trilogy”, p.446, Scholastic Inc.

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• "Clove!" Cato's voice is much nearer now. I can tell by the pain in it that he sees her on the ground. "You better run now, Fire Girl," says Thresh. I don't need to be told twice. I flip over and my feet dig into the hard-packed earth as I run away from Thresh and Clove and the sound of Cato's voice. Only when I reach the woods do I turn back for an instant. Thresh and both large backpacks are vanishing over the edge of the plain into the area I've never seen. Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a moment, he will realize it's futile; she can't be saved.

  Suzanne Collins

  Girl, Running, Pain

  "The Hunger Games". Book by Suzanne Collins, September 14, 2008.

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• Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a moment, he will realize it's futile, she can't be saved.

  Suzanne Collins

  Hands, Realizing, Moments

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games Trilogy”, p.378, Scholastic Inc.

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• When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Time, Learning, Long

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.

  Plutarch

  Men, Evil, Age

  Plutarch, Matthew Morgan (1718). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.223

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