Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

No sober person dances.

In the master there is a servant, in the servant a master.

Our minds are rendered buoyant by exercise.

The human mind ever longs for occupation.

Endless money forms the sinews of war. [Lat., Nervi belli pecunia infinita.]

I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh whenever he sees another soothsayer.

The leaders should all relate to this principle: the governed must be as happy as possible.

The celestial order and the beauty of the universe compel me to admit that there is some excellent and eternal Being, who deserves the respect and homage of men

Nature abhors annihilation. [Lat., Ab interitu naturam abhorrere.]

The well-known old remark of Cato, who used to wonder how two soothsayers could look one another in the face without laughing.

Friendship is the only point in human affairs concerning the benefit of which all, with one voice, agree.

That folly of old age which is called dotage is peculiar to silly old men, not to age itself.

Physicians, when the cause of disease is discovered, consider that the cure is discovered.

Aristoteles quidem ait: 'Omnes ingeniosos melancholicos esse.' Aristotle says that all men of genius are melancholy.

Our thoughts are free.

My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.

Nature loves nothing solitary, and always reaches out to something, as a support, which ever in the sincerest friend is most delightful.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

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.

No obligation to do the impossible is binding.

No poet or orator has ever existed who believed there was any better than himself.

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.

Calamus fortior gladio.

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.

Apollo, sacred guard of earth's true core, Whence first came frenzied, wild prophetic word.

It is not a virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.

For just as some women are said to be handsome though without adornment, so this subtle manner of speech, though lacking in artificial graces, delights us.

Nor do I regret that I have lived, since I have so lived that I think I was not born in vain, and I quit life as if it were an inn, not a home.

There is, I know not how, a certain presage, as it were, of a future existence; and this takes the deepest root, and is most discoverable, in the greatest geniuses and most exalted souls.

The nearer I approach death the more I feel like one who is in sight of land at last and is about to anchor in one's home port after a long voyage.

I cannot find a faithful message-bearer," he wrote to his friend, the scholar Atticus. "How few are they who are able to carry a rather weighty letter without lightening it by reading.

How great an evil do you see that may have been announced by you against the Republic? - Videtis quantum scelus contra rem publicam vobis nuntiatum sit?

For nothing is more commendable, nothing more becoming in a preeminently great man than courtesy and forbearance.

It is difficult to remember all, and ungracious to omit any.

All things tend to corrupt perverted minds.

There has never been a poet or orator who thought another better than himself.

A true friend is a sort of second self.

The remembrance of past misery is sweet.

Let the soldier yield to the civilian.

Thrift is a great revenue.

For many wish not so much to be, as to seem to be, endowed with real virtue.

If wisdom be attainable, let us not only win but enjoy it.

I am a Roman citizen.

We must be ever on the search for some persons whom we shall love and who will love us in return. If good will and affection are taken away, every joy is taken from life.

Nulla (enim) res tantum ad dicendum proficit, quantum scriptio Nothing so much assists learning as writing down what we wish to remember.

Nothing is difficult in the eyes of a lover.

Our liberality should not exceed our ability.

Pleasant is the recollection of dangers past.

Summer lasts not for ever; seasons succeed each other.