In Mottos We Trust? UNITED STATEMENTS OF AMERICA - bigthink.com
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| North Carolina: Esse quam videri – To Be Rather than to Seem From chapter 98 of Cicero’s essay De Amicitia (‘On Friendship’), where in its context is is used to mean the opposite: Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt: ‘Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so’. Sallustius however used it more positively in Bellum Catalinae, where he describes Cato the Younger as esse quam videri bonus malebat (‘he preferred to be good rather than to seem so’). The motto is particularly popular in educational circles, figuring as the motto of many schools, sororities and fraternities. It was adopted by North Carolina in 1893 – prior to that, it had been the only one of the original 13 states without a motto. |