97 Cicero Quotes

Cicero quotes

1. In anger nothing right nor judicious can be done.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

2. Genius is fostered by energy.

3. Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

4. While there's life, there's hope.

5. Nec vero [...] superstitione tollenda religio tollitur.

6. There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it.

7. Let the punishment match the offense.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

8. Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex.

9. Endless money forms the sinews of war.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

10. Inter arma enim silent leges

11. History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.

12. The freedom of poetic license.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

13. Quam cum suavissima et maxima voce legisset, admirantibus omnibus 'quanto' inquit 'magis miraremini, si audissetis ipsum!'

14. On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.

15. True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

16. A war is never undertaken by the ideal State, except in defense of its honor or its safety.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

17. Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

18. Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?

19. O tempora, o mores!.

20. A friend is, as it were, a second self.

21. The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

22. Friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

23. Prima enim sequentem honestum est in secundis tertiisque consistere. (3)

24. Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur? (120)

25. Hannibal ad portas

26. That, Senators, is what a favour from gangsters amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him!

27. Respublica est consensus iuris et communio utilitatis

28. Appetitus Rationi Pareat

29. Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.

30. Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut alizuid dicere possint argutius.

31. Omnium rerum principia parva sunt.

32. Suum Cuique.

33. Vi Et Armis.

34. Vi Victa Vis.

35. A bad peace is always better than a good war.

36. A happy life consists in tranquillity of mind.

37. A life of peace, purity, and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

38. A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

39. All action is of the mind and the mirror of the mind is the face, its index the eyes.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

40. Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

41. As the old proverb says 'Like readily consorts with like.'

42. Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

43. Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

44. Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

45. Freedom is participation in power.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

46. Friends, though absent, are still present.

47. He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

48. He removes the greatest ornament of friendship, who takes away from it respect.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

49. I will go further, and assert that nature without culture can often do more to deserve praise than culture without nature.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

50. If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

51. In men of the highest character and noblest genius there is to be found an insatiable desire for honour, command, power, and glory.

52. In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

53. It is a great thing to know our vices.

54. It is a true saying that 'One falsehood leads easily to another'.

55. Let arms give place to the robe, and the laurel of the warriors yield to the tongue of the orator.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

56. Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

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

58. Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion, or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.

59. Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

60. Nature herself has imprinted on the minds of all the idea of God.

61. Nature herself makes the wise man rich.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

62. Neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

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

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

64. No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.

65. Nothing quite new is perfect.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

66. Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

67. Our thoughts are free.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

68. Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

69. Reason should direct and appetite obey.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

70. Strain every nerve to gain your point.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

71. Such praise coming from so degraded a source, was degrading to me, its recipient.

72. The absolute good is not a matter of opinion but of nature.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

73. The evil implanted in man by nature spreads so imperceptibly, when the habit of wrong-doing is unchecked, that he himself can set no limit to his shamelessness.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

74. The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.

75. 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.

76. The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquillity, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

77. The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

78. The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.

79. There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

80. There is no duty more obligatory than the repayment of kindness.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

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

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

82. To be content with what one has is the greatest and truest of riches.

83. We are obliged to respect, defend and maintain the common bonds of union and fellowship that exist among all members of the human race.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

84. We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

85. 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.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

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

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

87. When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men'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.

88. Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?

89. The Six Mistakes of Man

90. The illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others.

91. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.

92. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.

93. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.

94. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and study.

95. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

96. You're trying to refute me by quoting things I've said or written myself. That's confronting me with documents that have already been sealed! You can reserve that method for people who only argue according to fixed rules. But I live from one day to the next! If something strikes me as probable, I say it; and that is how, unlike everyone else, I remain a free agent.

97. A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.