Skip to content

The greatest states have been overthrown by the young and sustained and restored by the old. ... Rashness is the product of the budding-time of youth, prudence of the harvest-time of age.

— Cicero Cato Maior de Senectute – On Old Age (-44)

Maximas res publicas ab adulescentibus labefactatas, a senibus sustentatas et restitutas reperietis. ... temeritas est videlicet florentis aetatis, prudentia senescentis.

Original text (Latin)

Another quote →

Notes from Wikiquote

section 20

More quotes by Cicero

I never cease urging peace, which, however unfair, is better than the justest war in the world.

Every one is least known to himself, and it is very difficult for a man to know himself.

No sensible man (among the many things that have been written on this kind) ever imputed inconsistency to another for changing his mind.

That he was never less at leisure than when at leisure; nor that he was ever less alone than when alone.

There is nothing better fitted to delight the reader than change of circumstances and varieties of fortune.

All Cicero quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Cicero (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.