… but can he keep this up?
1 It becomes all men, who desire to excel other animals,
to strive, to the utmost of their power, not to pass through life in
obscurity, like the beasts of the field, which nature has formed
groveling and subservient to appetite. All our power is situate in the
mind and in the body. Of the mind we rather employ the government; of
the body, the service. The one is common to us with the gods; the other
with the brutes. It appears to me, therefore, more reasonable to pursue
glory by means of the intellect than of bodily strength, and, since the
life which we enjoy is short, to make the remembrance of us as lasting
as possible. For the glory of wealth and beauty is fleeting and
perishable; that of intellectual power is illustrious and immortal.
Yet it was long a subject of dispute among mankind, whether
military efforts were more advanced by strength of body, or by force of
intellect. For, in affairs of war, it is necessary to plan before
beginning to act, and, after planning, to act with promptitude and
vigor. Thus, each being insufficient of itself, the one requires the
assistance of the other.
De coniuratione Catilinae.
edited by Jared W. Scudder (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1900).
Conspiracy of Catiline.
literally translated by the Rev. John Selby Watson.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 329 & 331 Pearl Street (1867).
