Wit & Attitude Quote by Cicero

Cicero turns old age into a stage where well-meant wisdom starts to look like bad timing, even bad manners. The line is built like a rebuke: advice from the elderly is not merely unhelpful but "absurd", the kind of practical overreach that misunderstands where life actually is. The road-trip metaphor does the heavy lifting. Provisions are rational when the destination is distant; stockpiling at the end reads as panic, denial, or vanity dressed up as prudence. By framing counsel as provisioning, Cicero implies that much advice is really about the adviser: a last attempt to manage outcomes, to stay relevant, to extend influence when the body can no longer extend itself.

The subtext is sharper than the surface pessimism. Cicero isn’t only talking about mortality; he’s targeting the social performance of wisdom. Roman public life rewarded the elder statesman who could still guide the republic, but it also punished anyone who clung to authority past usefulness. In that world, "advice in old age" risks becoming a kind of political clutter: directives issued after the decision has already moved on.

Context matters: Cicero’s writings on aging often argue for dignity, moderation, and continued civic engagement. That makes this sentence feel like a strategic sting, not a blanket dismissal. It cautions against the specific habit of compensating for dwindling time with intensified control. The closer the end, the more tempting it is to lecture, to hoard, to micromanage. Cicero’s irony is that this impulse mistakes quantity for meaning, as if extra supplies could change the destination.