Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes
Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey's end.
As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.
An unjust peace is better than a just war.
A friend is, as it were, a second self.
A letter does not blush.
A man of courage is also full of faith.
A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.
A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.
Ability without honor is useless.
All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief.
As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.
Before beginning, plan carefully.
Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.
Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.
Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.
Empire and liberty.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.
For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.
Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.
Hatred is inveterate anger.
Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.
He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.
Honor is the reward of virtue.
I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.
I criticize by creation - not by finding fault.
I never admire another's fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.
I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.
In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.
In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.
In everything, satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.
In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.
In honorable dealing you should consider what you intended, not what you said or thought.
It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.
Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.
Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.
Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.
Laws are silent in time of war.
Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.
Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.
Like associates with like.
Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Nature abhors annihilation.
Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.
Never injure a friend, even in jest.
No one can give you better advice than yourself.
No sane man will dance.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.
Nor has he spent his life badly who has passed it in privacy.
Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.
Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.
Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.
Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?
Oh, the times! Oh, the manners!
One who sees the Supersoul accompanying the individual soul in all bodies and who understands that neither the soul nor the Supersoul is ever destroyed, actually sees.
Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.
Peace is liberty in tranquillity.
People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.
Rashness belongs to youth; prudence to old age.
Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.
Since an intelligence common to us all makes things known to us and formulates them in our minds, honorable actions are ascribed by us to virtue, and dishonorable actions to vice; and only a madman would conclude that these judgments are matters of opinion, and not fixed by nature.
So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.
Sweet is the memory of past troubles.
That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.
The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.
The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.
The eyes like sentinel occupy the highest place in the body.
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
The good of the people is the greatest law.
The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.
The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.
The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free.
The more laws, the less justice.
The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.
The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.
The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.
The safety of the people shall be the highest law.
The sinews of war, a limitless supply of money.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.
There is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.
There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.
This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.
Thrift is of great revenue.
Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
To live is to think.
True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
True nobility is exempt from fear.
Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.
We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.
We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.
We think a happy life consists in tranquility of mind.
What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.
What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?
What is thine is mine, and all mine is thine.
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?
What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.
What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.
Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.
When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.
When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.
While there's life, there's hope.
You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.