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" Cato Thy nobleness of soul obliges me. But know, young prince, that valour soars above 50 What the world calls misfortune and affliction. These are not ills; else would they never fall On heaven’s first favourites, and the best of men: The gods, in bounty, work up storms about us, That give mankind occasion to exert 55 Their hidden strength, and throw out into practice Virtues which shun the day, and lie concealed In the smooth seasons and the calms of life.14 Juba I’m charmed whene’er thou talk’st! I pant for virtue! And all my soul endeavours at perfection. 60 Cato Dost thou love watchings,15 abstinence, and toil, Laborious virtues all? learn them from Cato: Success and fortune must thou learn from Caesar. "
― Joseph Addison , Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays
13
" Lucius There fled the greatest soul that ever warmed 100 A Roman breast. O Cato! O my friend! Thy will shall be religiously observed. But let us bear this awful corpse to Caesar, And lay it in his sight, that it may stand A fence betwixt us and the victor’s wrath; 105 Cato, though dead, shall still protect his friends. From hence, let fierce contending nations know What dire effects from civil discord flow. ’Tis this that shakes our country with alarms, And gives up Rome a prey to Roman arms, 110 Produces fraud, and cruelty, and strife, And robs the guilty world of Cato’s life. [Exeunt omnes.] "
― Joseph Addison , Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays
20
" Cato Meanwhile we’ll sacrifice to liberty. Remember, O my friends, the laws, the rights, The generous plan of power delivered down, From age to age, by your renowned forefathers, 75 (So dearly bought, the price of so much blood,) Oh let it never perish in your hands! But piously transmit it to your children. Do thou, great liberty, inspire our souls, And make our lives in thy possession happy, 80 Or our deaths glorious in thy just defence. "
― Joseph Addison , Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays