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Quotes from Cato, A Tragedy — Joseph Addison

1672–1719 England

← All quotes by Joseph Addison

43 quotes

Thanks to the gods! my boy has done his duty.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue!
Who would not be that youth? What pity is it
That we can die but once to serve our country!

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

The ideal man bears the accidents of life
With dignity and grace, the best of circumstances.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

The friendships of the world are oft
Confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure;
Ours has severest virtue for its basis,
And such a friendship ends not but with life.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us!

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

The honors of this world, what are they
But puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

I will indulge my sorrows, and give way
To all the pangs and fury of despair.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Loveliest of women! heaven is in thy soul,
Beauty and virtue shine forever round thee,
Bright'ning each other! thou art all divine!

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Oh! think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods,
Oh! 'tis a dreadful interval of time,
Filled up with horror all, and big with death!

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

If the following day he chance to find
A new repast, or an untasted spring,
Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Curse on his virtues! they've undone his country.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Thy father's merit sets thee up to view,
And shows thee in the fairest point of light,
To make thy virtues, or thy faults, conspicuous.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

To my confusion, and eternal grief,
I must approve the sentence that destroys me.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Thy steady temper, Portius,
Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar,
In the calm lights of mild philosophy.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

What means this heaviness that hangs upon me?
This lethargy that creeps through all my senses?
Nature, oppress'd and harrass'd out with care,
Sinks down to rest.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget
The pale, unripened beauties of the north.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

When love's well-timed 'tis not a fault of love;
The strong, the brave, the virtuous, and the wise,
Sink in the soft captivity together.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

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.

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

My voice is still for war.
Gods! Can a Roman senate long debate
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?

Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Joseph Addison (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.