Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

An intemperate, disorderly youth will bring to old age, a feeble and worn-out body.

The injuries that befall us unexpectedly are less severe than those which are deliberately anticipated.

Let a man practise the profession he best knows. [Lat., Quam quisque novit artem, in hac se exerceat.]

Sed nescio quo modo nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosphorum. (There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.)

I will adhere to the counsels of good men, although misfortune and death should be the consequence.

It is not the place that maketh the person, but the person that maketh the place honorable.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

The beauty of the world and the orderly arrangement of everything celestial makes us confess that there is an excellent and eternal nature, which ought to be worshiped and admired by all mankind.

If you possess a library and a garden, you have everything you need. (translation from the French) Si vous possedez une bibliotheque et un jardin, vous avez tout ce qu'il vous faut.

Inhumanity is harmful in every age. - Inhumanitas omni aetate molesta est

If nature does not ratify law, then all the virtues may lose their sway.

The illustrious and noble ought to place before them certain rules and regulations, not less for their hours of leisure and relaxation than for those of business.

A good man will not lie, although it be for his profit.

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

To reduce man to the duties of his own city, and to disengage him from duties to the members of other cities, is to break the universal society of the human race.

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

The whole glory of virtue resides in activity.

The soul in sleep gives proof of its divine nature.

Of evils one should choose the least. [Lat., Ex malis eligere minima oportere.]

I know not any season of life that is past more agreeably than virtuous old age.

History is truely the witness of times past, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.

Not to have knowledge of what happened before you were born is to be condemned to live as a child.

What is there that is illustrious that is not also attended by labor?

Anger should never appear in awarding punishment.

I have sworn with my tongue, but my mind is unsworn. [Lat., Juravi lingua, mentem injuratem gero.]

Everyone has his besetting sin.

We are born poets. we become orators.

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

In everything, without doubt, truth has the advantage over imitation.

Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.

You might as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life: for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.

Fire and water are not of more universal use than friendship.

Sweet is the memory of past troubles.

To know the laws is not to memorize their letter but to grasp their full force and meaning.

If you would abolish covetousness, you must abolish its mother, profusion.

But the Night Mother is mother to all! It is her voice we follow! Her will! Would you dare risk disobedience? And surely... punishment?

Hmm... That's like telling you about the cold of space, or terror of midnight. Sithis is all those things. He is... the Void.

What is so beneficial to the people as liberty, which we see not only to be greedily sought after by men, but also by beasts, and to be prepared in all things.

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

Memory is the receptacle and sheath of all knowledge

What is more agreeable than one's home?

He who suffers, remembers.

War should be undertaken in such a way as to show that its only object is peace.

It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy, but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life.

Longing not so much to change things as to overturn them.

Ye immortal gods! where in the world are we?

Like readily consorts with like.

Pardon is granted to necessity.

Work makes a callus against grief.

For the laws are dumb in the midst of arms.