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Great Seal of North Carolina with the state motto esse quam videri.

Esse quam videri (Latin "To be, rather than to seem") is the state motto of North Carolina, adopted in 1893. It is found in Cicero's essay "On Friendship" ("De amicitia", chapter 98). ("Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt." roughly "Many are not so endowed with bravery as they wish to seem.")

It is unusual that until the act of 1893 the sovereign state of North Carolina had no motto since its declaration of independence. It was one of the few states which did not have a motto and the only one of the original thirteen without one.

This is (or was) also the motto of several schools around the world including;

• Albert Academy Freetown, Sierra Leone
• S. Anselms Preparatory School Bakewell, England
• Appalachian State University (1899) Boone, North Carolina, USA
• Ashville College (1877) Harrogate, England
• Berklee College of Music Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Brigham Young University Men's Chorus, Provo, Utah, USA
• Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
• Colyton Grammar School (1546) Colyford, England
• Columbia College Chicago (1890) Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Connells Point Public School [1], Sydney, Australia.
• Cranbrook School (1918), Sydney, Australia.
• Darwin High School [2], Darwin, Australia
• The Episcopal Academy Merion, Pennsylvania, USA
• The Forest School Winnersh, Wokingham, Berkshire, UK
• Garrison Forest School for Girls (1910) Owings Mills, Maryland, USA
• The Hermitage School (1906), Geelong, Australia which has subsequently become that of The Hermitage House, Geelong Grammar School.
• Hampden DuBose Academy, Zellwood, Florida, USA
• Highsted Grammar School, Sittingbourne, Kent, England
• Instituto Metodista Bennett [3] (1888) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• KIPP Houston High School, Houston, Texas, USA
• Kutama College Norton, Zimbabwe
• Moravian Academy Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA current motto is "mind, body, spirit"
• North Adelaide Primary School, (1877), Adelaide, Australia.
• Rockridge Secondary School, West Vancouver, B.C., Canada
• Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, UK
• St Malachy's Memorial High School (http://stm.nbed.nb.ca/) in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
• Suffield Academy in Suffield, Connecticut, USA.
• Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy [4], (1999-Present), Rutherford County, NC
• The Boys' Latin School of Maryland (1844), Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Villa Devoto School [5] (1908) Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Wavell State High School Brisbane, Australia
• The Hemel Hempstead School [6] (1931) Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England
• St Audries School, West Quantoxhead, Taunton, Somerset, England (since closed and now a hotel)

Also the motto used on within the Brockman coat of arms circa 1700. The crest passed out of use with the death of James Brockman in 1767.

"Esse Quam Videri" is also the motto of the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority [7], founded in 1917 at New York University Law School.

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 Amphiaraos: "ou gar dokein aristos, all' enai thelei" (his resolve is not to seem the best but in fact to be the best). Plato quoted this line in Republic (361b).