Young men are more frequently wanton and dissolute than old men; but yet, as it is not all young men that are so, but the bad set among them, even so senile folly--usually called imbecility--applies to old men of unsound character, not to all.
Cicero draws a parallel between the character flaws found in some young men and the "senile folly" observed in some old men, attributing both to individual character rather than age itself.
Share
More from Cicero
But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live.
Nay, if some god should grant me to renew my childhood from my present age and once more to be crying in my cradle, I would firmly refuse; nor should I in truth be willing, after having, as it were, run the full course, to be recalled from…
Again, is there not the fact that the wisest man ever dies with the greatest cheerfulness, the most unwise with the least?
Other voices in this conversation
