1I cannot find fault with your purpose, Cato, because of the singular opinion I hold of your virtue; 1some things perhaps I could reshape and slightly correct. 1'You do not err much,' said that elderly tutor to a most brave man, 'but you do err; 1I can guide you.' 1But I cannot guide you; 1I would say with complete truth that you do not err at all, and that in no matter are you such that you seem to need correcting rather than gentle bending. 1For nature herself has fashioned you a great and lofty man for honour, dignity, self-control, greatness of mind, justice, in short for all the virtues.
1To this was added a doctrine that is neither moderate nor mild but, as it seems to me, somewhat harsher and sterner than either truth or nature allows. 61And since this speech is not to be made before an ignorant multitude or some gathering of rustics, I shall discuss somewhat boldly those liberal studies which are both familiar and pleasant to you and to me. 61In Cato, judges, know that these divine and excellent qualities which we see are his very own; 61the things we sometimes find lacking all come not from nature but from his teacher. 61For there was a man of the highest genius, Zeno, the followers of whose doctrines are called Stoics.
61His opinions and precepts are of this kind. 61That the wise man is never moved by favour and never pardons anyone's fault; 61that no one is compassionate except a fool and a shallow man; 61that it is not a man's part to be won over by entreaty or appeased; 61that the wise alone, though they be most misshapen, are handsome; though most beggarly, rich; though they be in slavery, kings; 61while we who are not wise they call runaway slaves, exiles, enemies, in short madmen; 61that all faults are equal; 61that every offence is an abominable crime, and that the man who has strangled a cockerel, when there was no need, does no less wrong than the man who has strangled his father; 61that the wise man never conjectures, regrets nothing, is deceived in nothing, never changes his opinion.