1If some chance had brought you, Cato, with that nature of yours, to these teachers, you would not indeed be a better man, nor braver, nor more self-controlled, nor more just — for you cannot be — but somewhat more inclined to mildness. 1You would not be prosecuting, when led by no enmity and provoked by no wrong, a most modest man endowed with the highest standing and honour; 1you would think that, since fortune had placed you and Murena on guard over the same year, you were joined with him by some bond of public service; 1what you said so fiercely in the senate you would either not have said or, if you could, you would put a milder interpretation on it.
1And you yourself, as far as I can divine by my own judgement, now stirred by a certain impulse of spirit, carried away by the force of your nature and talent and burning with your recent study of those precepts, will be bent by experience, softened by time, mellowed by age. 65For these very preceptors and masters of virtue of yours seem to me to have extended the limits of duty somewhat further than nature would wish, so that, when we had strained in mind towards the furthest point, we might nonetheless halt where we ought. 65'Pardon nothing.' 65No, rather pardon something, but not everything. 65'Do nothing for the sake of favour.' 65No, rather resist favour when duty and good faith demand it.
65'Do not be moved by pity.' 65Certainly, when it comes to relaxing severity; 65but still there is some credit in humanity. 65'Stand by your opinion.' 65Indeed, unless some other, better opinion has overcome that opinion. 66Of this kind was the great Scipio, who did not regret doing as you do, to keep a most learned man, Panaetius, in his house; 66by whose discourse and precepts, although they were the same as those which delight you, he was nevertheless made not harsher but, as I have heard from old men, most gentle. 66Who indeed was more affable than Laelius, who more agreeable, though from that same school of yours, who more weighty, more wise than he?
66I could say these same things of Philus and of Gallus, but I shall now take you home to your own house. 66Do you think anyone was more obliging, more sociable, more moderate in every aspect of humanity than Cato, your great-grandfather? 66When you were speaking truly and weightily of his outstanding virtue, you said that you had a domestic example to imitate. 66That example is indeed set before you at home, but still the likeness of his nature could pass down to you, who are descended from him, more than to each of us; as a model to imitate, however, it is set before me just as much as before you.
66But if you sprinkle his affability and approachability over your dignity and severity, these qualities of yours will not indeed be better, since they are now the best, but they will certainly be more pleasantly seasoned.