M. Tullius Cicero, Cato the Elder: on old age, section 25

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[25] And if you ask a farmer, however old, for whom he is planting, he will unhesitatingly reply, “For the immortal gods, who have willed not only that I should receive these blessings from my ancestors, but also that I should hand them on to posterity.”

8. And the same Caecilius, in writing of the old man making provision for a future generation, spoke to better purpose than he did in the following lines:

In truth, Old Age, if you did bring no bane
But this alone, 'twould me suffice: that one,
By living long, sees much he hates to see.
From Caecilius's comedy, Plocium.

[p. 35] Possibly, also, many things he likes; and as for things one does not wish to see, even youth often encounters them. However, this other sentiment from the same Caecilius is worse:

But saddest bane of age, I think, is this:
That old men feel their years a bore to youth.
From the play called Ephesio.

Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.

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