Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 1.87 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 1.87
A most wretched custom, assuredly, is our electioneering and scrambling for office. Concerning this also we find a fine thought in Plato: "Those who compete against one another," he says, "to see which of two candidates shall administer the government, are like sailors quarrelling as to which one of them shall do the steering." And he likewise lays down the rule that we should regard only those as adversaries who take up arms against the state, not those who strive to have the government administered according to their convictions. This was the spirit of the disagreement between Publius Africanus and Quintus Metellus: there was in it no trace of rancour.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 1.87, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/1.87
Cicero, On Duties (De Officiis), tr. Walter Miller (Loeb, 1913). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesCampaigning and scrambling for office is a wretched custom, and competing candidates are like sailors quarrelling over who will steer the ship. Treat as opponents only those who take up arms against the state, not people who simply want the country run according to their own convictions, and disagree without bitterness.
Older wording
- “rancour”
- — bitter resentment
- “electioneering”
- — campaigning for votes
Themes and situations
- Ambition and success
- Leadership and power
- Anger
- Community and our duty to others
- Conflict at work
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