We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.
Cato The ElderRead
Those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that people who take trivial things too seriously will ultimately fail to handle important issues appropriately.
Cato the Elder's quote highlights the importance of perspective in assessing what is truly significant in life. By emphasizing that those who are overly serious about trivial matters will appear foolish when faced with serious issues, Cato encourages us to maintain a balanced viewpoint and prioritize what truly matters, reminding us that our attitudes can profoundly affect our effectiveness and credibility.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about workplace priorities.
We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.
An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.
I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.
Tis sometimes the height of wisdom to feign stupidity.
Lighter is the wound foreseen.
Patience is the greatest of all virtues.
Humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve; nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of self.
I am not sure that it is of the first importance that you should be happy. Many an unhappy man has been of deep service to himself and to the world.
I've concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn't dollars, but the individual people whose lives I've touched. I think that's the way it will work for us all. Don't worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.
If the enemy cannot make you BAD, heβll make you BUSY.
Moses spent forty years in the king's palace thinking that he was somebody; then he lived forty years in the wilderness finding out that without GOD he was a nobody; finally he spent forty more years discovering how a nobody with GOD can be a somebody.
Do you think it's funny to be so serious when I'm not even out of high school?' she asked. 'I don't see how it could be any other way,' said Lee. 'Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time.
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