Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

Let every man practise the trade which he best understands.

More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.

Learning maketh young men temperate, is the comfort of old age, standing for wealth with poverty, and serving as an ornament to riches.

How much in love with himself, and that too without a rival!

The real friend is another self.

This, therefore, is a law not found in books, but written on the fleshly tablets of the heart, which we have not learned from man, received or read, but which we have caught up from Nature herself, sucked in and imbibed; the knowledge of which we were not taught, but for which we were made; we received it not by education, but by intuition.

Long life is denied us; therefore let us do something to show that we have lived.

Loyalty is what we seek in friendship.

On the subject of the nature of the gods, the first question is Do the gods exist or do the not? It is difficult you may say to deny that they exist. I would agree if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind, it is perfectly easy to do so.

Persistence in a single view has never been regarded as a merit in political leaders.

The home is the empire! There is no peace more delightful than one's own fireplace.

Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.

We ought to regard amiability as the quality of woman, dignity that of man.

My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.

Nothing is difficult in the eyes of a lover.

Each part of life has its own pleasures. Each has its own abundant harvest, to be garnered in season. We may grow old in body, but we need never grow old in mind and spirit. No one is as old as to think he or she cannot live one more year.

Friendship is given us by nature, not to favor vice, but to aid virtue.

This wine is forty years old. It certainly doesn't show its age.

The habit of arguing in support of atheism, whether it be done from conviction or in pretense, is a wicked and impious practice.

Reason should direct, and appetite obey.

There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.

The leaders should all relate to this principle: the governed must be as happy as possible.

For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is long enough in which to live honorably and well.

All great men are partially inspired.

The first bond of society is the marriage tie; the next our children; then the whole family of our house, and all things in common.

It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all things human and divine with mutual good-will and affection; and I doubt whether anything better than this, wisdom alone excepted, has been given to man.

If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words.

For one day spent well, and agreeably to your precepts, is preferable to an eternity of error.

I never admire another's fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.

Judge not by the number, but by the weight.

We should never so entirely avoid danger as to appear irresolute and cowardly; but, at the same time, we should avoid unnecessarily exposing ourselves to danger, than which nothing can be more foolish.

The causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves.

Since an intelligence common to us all makes things known to us and formulates them in our minds, honorable actions are ascribed by us to virtue, and dishonorable actions to vice; and only a madman would conclude that these judgments are matters of opinion, and not fixed by nature.

As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age; first, it withdraws us from active accomplishments; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.

Who does not know history's first law to be that an author must not dare to tell anything but the truth? And its second that he must make bold to tell the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of partiality anywhere in his writings? Nor of malice?

As a philosopher, I have a right to ask for a rational explanation of religious faith.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Laws are inoperative in war

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum. (Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.)

The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret -- that man is black at heart: mark and avoid him.

More law, less justice.

For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate.

War should be undertaken in such a way as to show that its only object is peace.

If some lose their whole fortunes, they will drag many more down with them . . . believe me that the whole system of credit and finance which is carried on here at Rome in the Forum, is inextricably bound up with the revenues of the Asiatic province. If Those revenues are destroyed, our whole system of credit will come down with a crash.

I know that it is likely that as worship of the gods declines, faith between men and all human society will disappear, as well as that most excellent of all virtues, which is justice.

History illumes reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life

The popular breeze - Aura popularis