Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

Thus in the beginning the world was so made that certain signs come before certain events.

This excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows.

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

If the truth were self-evident, eloquence would be unnecessary.

The rabble estimate few things according to their real value, most things according to their prejudices.

It was fear that was then making you a good citizen, which is never a lasting teacher of duty.

How much in love with himself, and that too without a rival!

We all are imbued with the love of praise.

The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

Promises are not to be kept, if the keeping of them is to prove harmful to those to whom you have made them.

It shows a brave and resolute spirit not to be agitated in exciting circumstances.

Hatred is a settled anger.

Persistence in a single view has never been regarded as a merit in political leaders.

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

Learning is a kind of natural food for the mind.

A bachelor's bed is the most pleasant.

Should this my firm persuasion of the soul's immortality prove to be a mere delusion, it is at least a pleasing delusion, and I will cherish it to my last breath.

Men of different tastes have different pursuits.

No liberal man would impute a charge of unsteadiness to another for having changed his opinion.

All soils are not fertile.

Every stage of human life, except the last, is marked out by certain and defined limits; old age alone has no precise and determinate boundary.

As a philosopher, I have a right to ask for a rational explanation of religious faith.

That is probable which for the most part usually comes to pass, or which is a part of the ordinary beliefs of mankind.

The science of love is the philosophy of the heart

It is like taking the sun out of the world, to bereave human life of friendship.

Leisure consists in all those virtuous activities by which a man grows morally, intellectually, and spiritually. It is that which makes a life worth living.

For what is there more hideous than avarice, more brutal than lust, more contemptible than cowardice, more base than stupidity and folly?

The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present.

Strain every nerve to gain your point.

For there is assuredly nothing dearer to a man than wisdom, and though age takes away all else, it undoubtedly brings us that.

There is nothing god cannot do.

It is our own evil thoughts which madden us.

Let every man practise the trade which he best understands.

Time is the herald of truth.

I hate all children of precocious talent.

War leads to peace. [Lat., Cedant arma togae.]

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

Friendship is not to be sought for its wages, but because its revenue consists entirely in the love which it implies.

An ancient custom obtains force of nature.

We don't believe a liar even when he tells the truth.

The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.

I depart from life as from an inn, and not as from my home. [Lat., Ex vita discedo, tanquam ex hospitio, non tanquam ex domo.]

A wise man does nothing by constraint.

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

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

The mansion should not be graced by its master, the master should grace the mansion.

Nature ordains that a man should wish the good of every man, whoever he may be, for this very reason that he is a man.

Old age by nature is rather talkative.

Before beginning, prepare carefully.

Constant practice devoted to one subject often outdoes both intelligence and skill. - Assiduus usus uni rei deditus et ingenium et artem saepe vincit