Cicero

Quotes

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.
While there's life, there's hope.
There is no being of any race who, if he finds the proper guide, cannot attain to virtue.
If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at second, or even the third place.
Laws are silent in times of war.
Nature herself has imprinted on the minds of all the idea of God.
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?
Friendship make prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Reason should direct and appetite obey.
If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.
Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.
Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger.
Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.
The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret - that man is black at heart: mark and avoid him.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?
By doubting we come at truth.
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts. it is something celestial and divine.
No liberal man would impute a charge of unsteadiness to another for having changed his opinion.
Anyone who has got a book collection and a garden wants for nothing.
The avarice of the old: it's absurd to increase one's luggage as one nears the journey's end.
What a time! What a civilization!
When you have no basis of argument, abuse the plaintiff.
The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
Law stands mute in the midst of arms.
History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.
The freedom of poetic license.
The people's good is the highest law.
Let the punishment match the offense.
The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.
A friend is, as it were, a second self.
Endless money forms the sinews of war.
Such praise coming from so degraded a source, was degrading to me, its recipient.
The absolute good is not a matter of opinion but of nature.
The evil implanted in man by nature spreads so imperceptibly, when the habit of wrong-doing is unchecked, that he himself can set no limit to his shamelessness.
The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.
There is no duty more obligatory than the repayment of kindness.
To be content with what one has is the greatest and truest of riches.
To each his own.
(Suum Cuique)
We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition.
We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.
What we call pleasure, and rightly so is the absence of all pain.
A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.
All action is of the mind and the mirror of the mind is the face, its index the eyes.
Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.
As the old proverb says "Like readily consorts with like."
By force of arms.
(Vi Et Armis)
Force overcome by force.
(Vi Victa Vis)
I will go further, and assert that nature without culture can often do more to deserve praise than culture without nature.
It is a true saying that "One falsehood leads easily to another".
Nature herself makes the wise man rich.
No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.
Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.
Strain every nerve to gain your point.
It is a great thing to know our vices.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
Our thoughts are free.
The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong.
A life of peace, purity, and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age.
He removes the greatest ornament of friendship, who takes away from it respect.
In men of the highest character and noblest genius there is to be found an insatiable desire for honour, command, power, and glory.
He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.
Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.
Neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language.
We are obliged to respect, defend and maintain the common bonds of union and fellowship that exist among all members of the human race.
There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.
A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.
The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.
(Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex)
Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.
Let your desires be ruled by reason.
(Appetitus Rationi Pareat)
Let arms give place to the robe, and the laurel of the warriors yield to the tongue of the orator.
Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.
The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.
The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquillity, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.
Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion, or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.
The more laws, the less justice.
There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Virtue is its own reward.