Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

No one is so old that he does not think he could live another year.

There is no thing which God cannot accomplish.

Thus nature has no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on some support; and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate friendship.

True nobility is exempt from fear.

The searching-out and thorough investigation of truth ought to be the primary study of man.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

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.

For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.

A community is like the ones who govern it.

He has no other recommendation, save an assumed and crafty solemnity of demeanour.

Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to please as expectation.

I do not understand what the man who is happy wants in order to be happier.

The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.

Thrift is a great revenue.

Our liberality should not exceed our ability.

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? In heaven's name,Catiline, how long will you abuse ourpatience?

Nothing is more praiseworthy, nothing more suited to a great and illustrious man than placability and a merciful disposition.

It is not a virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.

Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun.

Ill gotten gains will be ill spent.

Courage is virtue which champions the cause of right.

Thou knowest how numerous this tribe is, how united and how powerful in the assemblies. I will plead in a low voice so that only the judges may hear, for instigators are not lacking to stir up the crowd against me, and against all the best citizens. To scorn, in the interest of the Republic, this multitude of Jews so often turbulent in the assemblies shows a singular strength of mind. The money is in the Treasury; they do not accuse us of theft; they seek to stir up hatreds.

Not to have knowledge of what happened before you were born is to be condemned to live as a child.

It shows nobility to be willing to increase your debt to a man to whom you already owe much.

The good of the people is the greatest law.

The freedom of poetic license.

Vicious habits are so great a stain to human nature, and so odious in themselves, that every person actuated by right reason would avoid them, though he were sure they would be always concealed both from God and man, and had no future punishment entailed upon them.

The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect others to be vicious.

Let us assume that entertainment is the sole end of reading; even so I think you would hold that no mental employment is so broadening to the sympathies or so enlightening to the understanding. Other pursuits belong not to all times, all ages, all conditions; but this gives stimulus to our youth and diversion to our old age; this adds a charm to success, and offers a haven of consolation to failure. Through the night-watches, on all our journeyings, and in our hours of ease, it is our unfailing companion.

These studies are a spur to the young, a delight to the old: an ornament in prosperity, a consoling refuge in adversity; they are pleasure for us at home, and no burden abroad; they stay up with us at night, they accompany us when we travel, they are with us in our country visits.

Let flattery, the handmaid of the vices, be far removed .

Rashness attends youth, as prudence does old age.

The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

What is dishonestly got vanishes in profligacy.

When war is raging the laws are dumb.

It is virtue itself that produces and sustains friendship, not without virtue can friendship by any possibility exist.

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.

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.

For what people have always sought is equality before the law. For rights that were not open to all alike would be no rights.

All the arts of refinement have mutual kinship.

No obligation to do the impossible is binding.

Let a man practice the profession which he best knows.

I am of opinion that there is nothing so beautiful but that there is something still more beautiful, of which this is the mere image and expression,--a something which can neither be perceived by the eyes, the ears, nor any of the senses; we comprehend it merely in the imagination.

It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.

It is a man's own dishonesty, his crimes, his wickedness, and boldness, that takes away from him soundness of mind; these are the furies, these the flames and firebrands, of the wicked.

Death is dreadful to the man whose all is extinguished with his life; but not to him whose glory never can die.