Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

Care must be taken that the punishment does not exceed the offence.

If I am mistaken in my opinion that the human soul is immortal, I willingly err; nor would I have this pleasant error extorted from me; and if, as some minute philosophers suppose, death should deprive me of my being, I need not fear the raillery of those pretended philosophers when they are no more.

Fortune is not only blind herself, but blinds the people she has embraced.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

Wars are to be undertaken in order that it may be possible to live in peace without molestation.

Genius is fostered by industry.

Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

The whole life of a philosopher is the meditation of his death.

History is truely the witness of times past, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.

To give and receive advice - the former with freedom, and yet without bitterness, the latter with patience and without irritation - is peculiarly appropriate to geniune friendship.

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue but the parent of all the other virtues.

Honor is the reward of virtue.

A man would have no pleasures in discovering all the beauties of the universe, even in heaven itself, unless he had a partner to whom he might communicate his joys.

That man is guilty of impertinence who considers not the circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company he is in.

Even while Jerusalem was standing and the Jews were at peace with us, the practice of their sacred rites was at variance with the glory of our empire, the dignity of our name, the customs of our ancestors.

The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.

Politeness and an affable address are our best introduction.

There is no more sure tie between friends than when they are united in their objects and wishes.

Peace is so beneficial that the word itself is pleasant to hear.

Pleasant is the recollection of dangers past.

Wars, therefore, are to be undertaken for this end, that we may live in peace, without being injured; but when we obtain the victory, we must preserve those enemies who behaved without cruelty or inhumanity during the war.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

Learning is a kind of natural food for the mind.

To wonder at nothing when it happens, to consider nothing impossible before it has come to pass.

We rejoice in the joys of our friends as much as we do our own, and we are equally grieved at their sorrows. Wherefore the wise people will feel toward their friends as they do toward themselves, and whatever labor they would encounter with a view to their own pleasure, they will encounter also for the sake of their friends.

It is difficult to persuade mankind that the love of virtue is the love of themselves.

Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.

No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.

That folly of old age which is called dotage is peculiar to silly old men, not to age itself.

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.

Silent enim leges inter arma (Laws are silent in times of war).

I will adhere to the counsels of good men, although misfortune and death should be the consequence.

The remembrance of past misery is sweet.

It is like taking the sun out of the world, to bereave human life of friendship.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

The name of peace is sweet, the thing itself is most salutary.

Friends, though absent, are still present.

The spirit is the true self.

Mathematics is an obscure field, an abstruse science, complicated and exact; yet so many have attained perfection in it that we might conclude almost anyone who seriously applied himself would achieve a measure of success.

Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.

It is easy to distinguish between the joking that reflects good breeding and that which is coarse-the one, if aired at an apposite moment of mental relaxation, is becoming in the most serious of men, whereas the other is unworthy of any free person, if the content is indecent or the expression obscene.

Tall oaks grow from little acorns.Testing. This is the text of an item. Testing. Origin. Testing. Quoted. Testing. Source. The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit.

I remember the very thing that I do not wish to; I cannot forget the things I wish to forget.

Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey's end.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

No well-informed person has declared a change of opinion to be inconstancy.