Famous Quotes

Quotes by Marcus Tullius Cicero

• A friend is, as it were, a second self.
• A home without books is a body without soul.
• A man of courage is also full of faith.
• According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.
• 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.
• An unjust peace is better than a just war.
• 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.
• Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.
• Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
• Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.
• Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.
• 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.
• Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.
• Freedom is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.
• Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.
• Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
• Frivolity is inborn, conceit acquired by education.
• Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.
• Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.
• Hatred is inveterate anger.
• Hatred is settled anger.
• I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
• 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.
• I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
• 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.
• If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
• 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.
• 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.
• In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.
• In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.
• In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.
• In time of war the laws are silent.
• It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
• It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.
• It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.
• It might be pardonable to refuse to defend some men, but to defend them negligently is nothing short of criminal.
• 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.
• Justice consists in doing no injury to men decency in giving them no offense.
• Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.