Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

What we call pleasure, and rightly so is the absence of all pain.

Freedom is participation in power.

There are gems of thought that are ageless and eternal.

Oh, how great is the power of truth! which of its own power can easily defend itself against all the ingenuity and cunning and wisdom of men, and against the treacherous plots of all the world.

Hatred is a settled anger.

We cannot employ the mind to advantage when we are filled with excessive food and drink.

Every man should bear his own grievances rather than detract from the comforts of another.

Any man may make a mistake; none but a fool will stick to it. Second thoughts are best as the proverb says.

When money is unreasonably coveted, it is a disease of the mind which is called avarice.

A wise man does nothing by constraint.

Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.

They are eloquent who can speak low things acutely, and of great things with dignity, and of moderate things with temper.

No one dies too soon who has finished the course of perfect virtue.

You may never be less alone than when you are alone.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.

Frugality includes all the other virtues.

Nothing in oratory is more important than to win for the orator the favour of his hearer, and to have the latter so affected as to be swayed by something resembling an impulse of the spirit impetu quodam animi or emotion perturbatione, rather than by judgment or deliberation. For men decide far more problems by hate, or love, or lust, or rage, or sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or illusion, or some other inward emotion aliqua permotione mentis, than by reality or authority, or any legal standard, or judicial precedent or statute.

The wise man knows nothing if he cannot benefit from his wisdom. Wisdom is not only to be acquired, but also to be utilized.

An innocent man, if accused, can be acquitted; a guilty man, unless accused, cannot be condemned. It is, however, more advantageous to absolve an innocent than not to prosecute a guilty man.

When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's [children's] minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.

Strict law is often great injustice.

An intemperate, disorderly youth will bring to old age, a feeble and worn-out body.

In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.

Death approaches, which is always impending like the stone over Tantalus: then comes superstition with which he who is imbued can never have peace of mind.

It is not easy to distinguish between true and false affection, unless there occur one of those crises in which, as gold is tried by fire, so a faithful friendship may be tested by danger.

Friendship is the only point in human affairs concerning the benefit of which all, with one voice, agree.

When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.

Men, in whatever anxiety they may be, if they are men, sometimes indulge in relaxation.

Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.'

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

Anyone who has got a book collection/library and a garden wants for nothing.

Dum Spiro, spero- As long as I breathe, I hope.

Nature herself makes the wise man rich.

This seems to be advanced as the surest basis for our belief in the existence of gods, that there is no race so uncivilized, no one in the world so barbarous that his mind has no inkling of a belief in gods.

Tomorrow will give us something to think about

Lucius Cassius ille quem populus Romanus verissimum et sapientissimum iudicem putabat identidem in causis quaerere solebat 'cui bono' fuisset. The famous Lucius Cassius, whom the Roman people used to regard as a very honest and wise judge, was in the habit of asking, time and again, 'To whose benefit?

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

I look upon the pleasure we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life.

The great theatre for virtue is conscience.

A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

Nor do I regret that I have lived, since I have so lived that I think I was not born in vain, and I quit life as if it were an inn, not a home.

Ability without honor is useless.

I prefer the wisdom of the uneducated to the folly of the loquacious.

We can more easily avenge an injury than requite a kindness; on this account, because there is less difficulty in getting the better of the wicked than in making one's self equal with the good.

Philosophy is the true mother of science.

I cease not to advocate peace; even though unjust it is better than the most just war.