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Quotes by Marcus Tullius Cicero


It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A friend is, as it were, a second self.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A letter does not blush.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A man of courage is also full of faith.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Ability without honor is useless.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
An unjust peace is better than a just war.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Before beginning, plan carefully.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Empire and liberty.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Hatred is inveterate anger.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Honor is the reward of virtue.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
I criticize by creation - not by finding fault.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
I never admire another's fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
In everything, satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
In honorable dealing you should consider what you intended, not what you said or thought.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Like associates with like.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nature abhors annihilation.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Never injure a friend, even in jest.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
No one can give you better advice than yourself.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
No sane man will dance.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nor has he spent his life badly who has passed it in privacy.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Oh, the times! Oh, the manners!
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
One who sees the Supersoul accompanying the individual soul in all bodies and who understands that neither the soul nor the Supersoul is ever destroyed, actually sees.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Peace is liberty in tranquillity.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Rashness belongs to youth; prudence to old age.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
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.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Sweet is the memory of past troubles.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The eyes like sentinel occupy the highest place in the body.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The First Bond of Society is Marriage.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The good of the people is the greatest law.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The more laws, the less justice.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The safety of the people shall be the highest law.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
There is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Thrift is of great revenue.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
To live is to think.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
True nobility is exempt from fear.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero