Petrarch, de Otio et Solitudine (2):
That Scipio who first earned the title of Africanus through his deeds and virtue was a lover of solitude and leisure. And so, he was in the habit of withdrawing that spirit which dominated so many peoples, that military body exercised in wars, and those ears filled with the murmur of the camp and the blasts of the trumpets, not so that his virtue could languish in idleness, but so that his mind, distracted by the variety of his occupations, could compose itself. For this reason, he never seemed to himself to be entirely at leisure, given that he was always contriving something important with the perpetual occupation of his mind, nor did he ever seem to himself to be alone, since he was always accompanied by the gravest and noblest cares, nor did he ever seek the theater or the applause of the masses, since the memory of his own affairs applauded for him, and he was content with the testimony of his own conscience. Therefore, we understand that he was right to say that he was ‘never less at leisure than when he was at leisure, and never less alone than when he was lone.’ Cicero is the authority for the claim that Cato, hardly a middling imitator of that famous Africanus, left behind this account in writing.
Scipio ille qui primus agnomen Africani rebus gestis et virtute meruit, amator solitudinis atque otii fuit. Itaque spiritum domitorem gentium et militare illud corpus bellis exercitum auresque castrorum strepitu et tubarum fragoribus oppletas huc referre consueverat, non ut virtus otio langueret, sed ut se se mens varietate negotiorum distracta colligeret. Quamobrem neque sibi unquam otiosus, perpetua mentis occupatione grande aliquid moliens, neque sibi solus unquam videbatur, altissimis atque pulcerrimis comitatus curis, neque theatrum aut vulgi plausum querebat, rerum suarum plaudente memoria et conscientie testimonio contentus. ⟨2⟩ Iure ergo dicere solitum accepimus «nunquam se minus otiosum esse quam cum otiosus, nec minus solum quam cum solus esset». Idque ipsius Africani non mediocrem emulum M. Porcium Catonem scriptum reliquisse auctor est Cicero.
