Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

All things tend to corrupt perverted minds.

Diseases of the soul are more dangerous and more numerous than those of the body.

The master sometimes serves, and the servant sometimes is master.

Nothing is so difficult to believe that oratory cannot make it acceptable, nothing so rough and uncultured as not to gain brilliance and refinement from eloquence.

In friendship we find nothing false or insincere; everything is straight forward, and springs from the heart.

Who does not know that the first law of historical writing is the truth.

Law is the highest reason implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.

Let us not go over the old ground but rather prepare for what is to come.

Physicians, when the cause of disease is discovered, consider that the cure is discovered.

That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.

But the Night Mother is mother to all! It is her voice we follow! Her will! Would you dare risk disobedience? And surely... punishment?

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.

Hmm... That's like telling you about the cold of space, or terror of midnight. Sithis is all those things. He is... the Void.

Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?

Friendship, on the other hand, serves a great host of different purposes all at the same time. In whatever direction you turn, it still remains yours. No barrier can shut it out. It can never be untimely; it can never be in the way. We need friendship all the time, just as much as we need the proverbial prime necessities of life, fire and water.

Life is short, but art lives forever.

It is besides necessary that whoever is brave should be a man of great soul.

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

I hope that the memory of our friendship will be everlasting.

What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

As in the case of wines that improve with age, the oldest friendships ought to be the most delightful.

It is our own evil thoughts which madden us.

Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.

I know not any season of life that is past more agreeably than virtuous old age.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

Always the same thing.

When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

To live long it is necessary to live slowly.

Let the soldier yield to the civilian.

Nothing is so unpredictable as a throw of the dice, and yet every man who plays often will at some time or other make a Venus-cast: now and then he indeed will make it twice and even thrice in succession. Are we going to be so feebleminded then as to aver that such a thing happened by the personal intervention of Venus rather than by pure luck?

Nothing is too absurd to be said by some of the philosophers.

If we lose affection and kindliness from our life: we lose all that gives it charm.

There is nothing more shocking than to see assertion and approval dashing ahead of cognition and perception.

Let the punishment be proportionate to the offense.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself; you will never err if you listen to your own suggestions.

I am a Roman citizen.

What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?

Whatever you do, do with all your might.

The hours pass and the days and the months and the years, and the past time never returns.

The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.

The judgment of posterity is truer, because it is free from envy and malevolence.

No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.

Anger should never appear in awarding punishment.

The spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by your finger.

The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed.

It has seemed to be more necessary to have regard to the weight of words rather than to their number.