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Quotes by Marcus Tullius Cicero

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What is thine is mine, and all mine is thine.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
While there's life, there's hope.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A happy life consists in tranquillity of mind.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A life of peace, purity, and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
All action is of the mind and the mirror of the mind is the face, its index the eyes.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
As the old proverb says Like readily consorts with like.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
By force of arms.
(Vi Et Armis)
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Force overcome by force.
(Vi Victa Vis)
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
He removes the greatest ornament of friendship, who takes away from it respect.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
I will go further, and assert that nature without culture can often do more to deserve praise than culture without nature.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
In men of the highest character and noblest genius there is to be found an insatiable desire for honour, command, power, and glory.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
It is a great thing to know our vices.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
It is a true saying that One falsehood leads easily to another.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Let arms give place to the robe, and the laurel of the warriors yield to the tongue of the orator.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Let your desires be ruled by reason.
(Appetitus Rationi Pareat)
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nature herself makes the wise man rich.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Our thoughts are free.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Reason should direct and appetite obey.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Strain every nerve to gain your point.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Such praise coming from so degraded a source, was degrading to me, its recipient.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The absolute good is not a matter of opinion but of nature.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.
(Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex)
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
There is no duty more obligatory than the repayment of kindness.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
To be content with what one has is the greatest and truest of riches.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
To each his own.
(Suum Cuique)
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
We are obliged to respect, defend and maintain the common bonds of union and fellowship that exist among all members of the human race.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What we call pleasure, and rightly so is the absence of all pain.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Let the punishment match the offense.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The people's good is the highest law.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Friendship make prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Endless money forms the sinews of war.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Law stands mute in the midst of arms.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The freedom of poetic license.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
To some extent I liken slavery to death.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The best interpreter of the law is custom.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Old age: the crown of life, our play's last act.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Next to God we are nothing. To God we are Everything.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
It might be pardonable to refuse to defend some men, but to defend them negligently is nothing short of criminal.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
In time of war the laws are silent.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money! Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Hatred is settled anger.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Frivolity is inborn, conceit acquired by education.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Freedom is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A home without books is a body without soul.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero