ESSE
(EH-see)
Latin
for “to be”; existence; being
Common
clues: In ____ (actually); Being, to Brutus; Latin 101 verb;
Latin
being; To be, in old Rome; First word in North Carolina's
motto Crossword
puzzle frequency:
8 times a year Frequency
in English language:
70702 / 86800 Video: Online
Latin 101 at Iowa State University
Esse
quam videri is a Latin phrase meaning "to be, rather than to
seem". It has been used as motto by a number of different
groups.
Esse
quam videri is the state motto of North Carolina, adopted in
1893.
Esse
quam videri is found in Cicero's essay "On Friendship"
("De amicitia", chapter 98). "Virtute enim ipsa
non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt" (Many are
not so endowed with virtue as they wish to seem).
Just
a few years after Cicero, Sallust used the phrase in his Bellum
Catilinae (54.6), writing that Cato the Younger "esse quam
videri bonus malebat" (He preferred to be good rather than
to seem so).
Previous
to both Romans, Aeschylus used a similar phrase in Seven Against
Thebes at line 592, at which the scout (angelos) says of the
seer/priest Amphiaraos: "ou gar dokein aristos, all' enai
thelei" (his resolve is not to seem the best but in fact to
be the best). Plato quoted this line in Republic (361b).
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Esse
quam videri".
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