„Pianta alberi, che gioveranno in un altro tempo.“
citato in Cicerone, De senectute
Data di nascita: 234 a.C.
Data di morte: 149 a.C.
Altri nomi: Marcus Porcius Cato, Marcus Porcius St. Cato, Марк Порций Катон Старший
Marco Porcio Catone è stato un politico, generale e scrittore romano, soprannominato "il Censore" , Sapiens, Priscus o maior per distinguerlo da Marco Porcio Catone Uticense, il suo pronipote.
citato in Cicerone, De senectute
citato in Aulo Gellio, Notti attiche XI, 18, 18
— Marco Porcio Catone, libro De agri cultura
da De re rustica, V, 3
De agri cultura
citato in Tito Livio, XXXIV, 14; 1997
citato in Tito Livio, XXXIV, 4; 2006
citato in Tito Livio, XXXIV, 3; 1921
citato in Cicerone, De amicitia, 24, 90
citato in Giulio Vittore, Ars rethorica, 15
citato in Tito Livio, XXXIV, 4
Originale: (la) [D]iversisque duobus vitiis, avaritia et luxuria, civitatem laborare, quae pestes omnia magna imperia everterunt.
citato in Tito Livio, XXXIV, 3; 1997
da Plutarco, Vita di Catone
Cato's advice to orators (as quoted in Julius Victor, Art of Rhetoric. p. 197, Orell.; see also Wilhelm Sigismund Teuffel, Teuffel's History of Roman literature, Vol. 1 (1873), p. 158)
Cf. Dionysius Halicarnassensis, De Isocrate, ch. 12: "βούλεται δὲ ἡ φύσις τοῖς νοήμασιν ἕπεσθαι τὴν λέξιν, οὐ τῇ λέξει τὰ νοήματα." [Νature has it that style is in the service of thought, not the other way around.]
Variant translations:
Stick to your subject, and words will follow.
Get hold of the matter, the words will come of themselves.
Lay hold of the subject, and the words will follow.
Keep to the subject and the words will come.
Grasp the point, the words will follow.
Seize the subject; the words will follow.
Stick to the point; the words will follow.
Master the facts; the words will follow.
Lay hold of the substance, the words will follow.
Hold fast to the matter, the words will come.
Hang onto your meaning, and the words will come.
Have a grip of your theme and the words will come.
Hold the idea and the words will follow.
Stick to the meaning, and the words will take care of themselves.
Originale: (la) Rem tene, verba sequentur.
In bitter criticism of the prevalent domination of women (The Classical weekly, Vol. 25–26, 1932, p. 273).
Quoted in Plutarch Apophthegmata regum et imperatorum, in Greek.
— Cato the Elder, libro De agri cultura
Of buying a farm; Cited in John Claudius Loudon (1825) An Encyclopædia of Agriculture. Part 1. p. 14
Loudon commented: In the time of Cato the Censor, the author of The Husbandry of the Ancients observed, though the operations of agriculture were generally performed by servants, yet the great men among the Roman continued to give particular attention to it, studied its improvement, and were very careful and exact in the management of nil their country affairs. This appears from the directions given them by this most attentive farmer. Those great men had both houses in town, and villas in the country; and, as they resided frequently in town, the management of their country affairs was committed to a bailiff or overseer. Now their attention to the culture of their land and to every other branch of husbandry, appears, from the directions given them how to behave upon their arrival from the city at their villas.
De Agri Cultura, about 160 BC