Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

There is no being of any race who, if he finds the proper guide, cannot attain to virtue.

A man of courage is also full of faith.

We must not only obtain Wisdom: we must enjoy her.

Nature loves nothing solitary, and always reaches out to something, as a support, which ever in the sincerest friend is most delightful.

Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity.

Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.

Man is his own worst enemy.

Man must suffer to be wise.

The house should derive dignity from the master, not the master from the house.

The whole glory of virtue resides in activity.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Enjoy the blessing of strength while you have it and do not bewail it when it is gone, unless, forsooth, you believe that youth must lament the loss of infancy, or early manhood the passing of youth. Life's race-course is fixed; Nature has only a single path and that path is run but once, and to each stage of existence has been allotted its own appropriate quality; so that the weakness of childhood, the impetuosity of youth, the seriousness of middle life, the maturity of old age.. each bears some of Nature's fruit, which must be garnered in its own season.

Softly! Softly! I want none but the judges to hear me. The Jews have already gotten me into a fine mess, as they have many other gentleman. I have no desire to furnish further grist for their mills.

Religion is not removed by removing superstition.

Nothing troubles you for which you do not yearn.

Through ignorance of what is good and what is bad, the life of men is greatly perplexed.

Sound conviction should influence us rather than public opinion.

Not only is there an art in knowing a thing, but also a certain art in teaching it.

That which is not forbidden, is not on that account permitted.

The cultivation of the mind is a kind of food supplied for the soul of man.

All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief.

Friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things, human and divine, conjoined with mutual goodwill and affection.

The man who is always fortunate cannot easily have a great reverence for virtue.

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.

We are all excited by the love of praise, and the noblest are most influenced by glory.

...the counsels of the Divine Mind had some glimpse of truth when they said that men are born in order to suffer the penalty for sins committed in a former life.

Friends are proved by adversity.

Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

No tempest or conflagration, however great, is harder to quell than mob carried away by the novelty of power.

There is no life without friendship

If a man could mount to Heaven and survey the mighty universe, his admiration of its beauties would be much diminished unless he had someone to share in his pleasure.

It is difficult to set bounds to the price unless you first set bounds to the wish.

We should be careful that our benevolence does not exceed our means.

There is in superstition a senseless fear of God; religion consists in the pious worship of Him.

Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.

There is a difference between justice and consideration in one's relations to one's fellow men. It is the function of justice not to do wrong to one's fellow men of considerateness, not to wound their feelings.

We are not born for ourselves alone.

Hatred is settled anger.

Nature has granted the use of life like a loan, without fixing any day for repayment.

There are two ways to resolve conflicts, through violence or through negotiation. Violence is for wild beasts, negotiation is for human beings.

Now in regard to trades and other means of livelihood, which ones are to be considered becoming to a gentleman and which ones are vulgar, we have been taught, in general, as follows. First, those means of livelihood are rejected as undesirable which incur people's ill-will, as those of tax-gatherers and usurers. Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery.

Victory is by nature insolent and haughty.

. . . for until that God who rules all the region of the sky . . . has freed you from the fetters of your body, you cannot gain admission here. Men were created with the understanding that they were to look after that sphere called Earth, which you see in the middle of the temple. Minds have been given to them out of the eternal fires you call fixed stars and planets, those spherical solids which, quickened with divine minds, journey through their circuits and orbits with amazing speed.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

The office of liberality consisteth in giving with judgment.

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.

Please go on, make your threats. I don't like to submit to mere implication.