Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

It is our duty, my young friends, to resist old age.

So it may well be believed that when I found him taking a complete holiday, with a vast supply of books at command, he had the air of indulging in a literary debauch, if the term may be applied to so honorable an occupation.

Nature has inclined us to love men.

It is a common saying that many pecks of salt must be eaten before the duties of friendship can be discharged.

For many wish not so much to be, as to seem to be, endowed with real virtue.

He removes the greatest ornament of friendship who takes away from it respect.

The world has not yet learned the riches of frugality.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.

Vicious habits are so odious and degrading that they transform the individual who practices them into an incarnate demon.

Most happy is he who is entirely self-reliant, and who centers all his requirements in himself alone.

Laws should be interpreted in a liberal sense so that their intention may be preserved.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

There is nothing so charming as the knowledge of literature; of that branch of literature, I mean, which enables us to discover the infinity of things, the immensity of Nature, the heavens, the earth, and the seas; this is that branch which has taught us religion, moderation, magnanimity, and that has rescued the soul from obscurity; to make her see all things above and below, first and last, and between both; it is this that furnishes us wherewith to live well and happily, and guides us to pass our lives without displeasure and without offence.

The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

Here is a man whose life and actions the world has already condemned - yet whose enormous fortune...has already brought him acquittal!

There is no moment without some duty.

It is a strong proof of men knowing most things before birth, that when mere children they grasp innumerable facts with such speed as to show that they are not then taking them in for the first time, but are remembering and recalling them.

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts, it is something celestial and divine.

He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.

The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice.

Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defence can actually be just.

It is necessary for a Senator to be thoroughly acquainted with the constitution; and this is a knowledge of the most extensive nature; a matter of science, of diligence, of reflection, without which no Senator can possibly be fit for his office.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

No one could ever meet death for his country without the hope of immortality.

Guilt is present in the very hesitation, even though the deed be not committed.

Before beginning, plan carefully.

While all other things are uncertain, evanescent, and ephemeral, virtue alone is fixed with deep roots; it can neither be overthrown by any violence or moved from its place.

The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present.

Thus in the beginning the world was so made that certain signs come before certain events.

All I can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity.

Rashness belongs to youth; prudence to old age.

Friendship embraces innumerable ends; turn where you will it is ever at your side; no barrier shuts it out; it is never untimely and never in the way.

We forget our pleasures, we remember our sufferings.

Leisure with dignity.

I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money. Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.

The foundation of justice is good faith.

Summer lasts not for ever; seasons succeed each other.

Probabilities direct the conduct of the wise man.

Scurrility has no object in view but incivility; if it is uttered from feelings of petulance, it is mere abuse; if it is spoken in a joking manner, it may be considered raillery.

The proof of a well-trained mind is that it rejoices in which is good and grieves at the opposite.

Hunger is the best sauce.

Let the welfare of the people be the ultimate law.

A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.

For nothing is more commendable, nothing more becoming in a preeminently great man than courtesy and forbearance.

Vivere est cogitare. (To think is to live)