Esse quam videri

Esse quam videri is a Latin phrase meaning "To be, rather than to seem" (to be). It has been used as a motto by a number of different groups.

Esse quam videri is found in Cicero's essay On Friendship (Laelius de Amicitia, chapter 98). 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").

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 Amphiaraus: οὐ γὰρ δοκεῖν ἄριστος, ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι θέλει (ou gàr dokeîn áristos, all' eînai thélei: "he doesn't want to seem, but to be the bravest"). Plato quoted this line in Republic (361b).

Niccolò Machiavelli reversed the phrase to videri quam esse (to seem rather than to be).

Esse quam videri is the state motto of North Carolina, adopted in 1893.

Esse quam videri is (or was) the motto of a number of schools and colleges around the world, including:

Esse quam videri is the motto of the following sororities:

Esse quam videri is the motto of the following fraternities:

Esse quam videri is also the motto of

Television personality Stephen Colbert inverted the statement on his show The Colbert Report to Videri Quam Esse, meaning "to seem to be rather than to be." It is also engraved across the faux hearth, above the video fireplace, in his studio, under his portrait.

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