Quote #18
In conversation avoid the extremes of forwardness and reserve.
Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.
More from Cato the Elder
- I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one.
- In doing nothing men learn to do evil.
- I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the righ…
- It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears.
- Grasp the subject, the words will follow.
- Lighter is the wound foreseen.
- From lightest words sometimes the direst quarrel springs.
- Not that I might die learned-but that I might not die unlearned.