Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.

[Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher

Laelius De Amicitia [Laelius on Friendship], ch. 26 / sec. 98 (44 BC)

Common translation. Alternates:

• "For not so many desire to be endowed with virtue itself, as to seem to be so." [tr. Edmonds (1871)]
• "For there are not so many possessed of virtue as there are that desire to seem virtuous." [tr. Peabody (1887)]
• "For many wish not so much to be, as to seem to be, endowed with real virtue." [tr. Falconer (1923)]