Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

We must not say that every mistake is a foolish one.

Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.

Things sacred should not only be touched with the hands, but unviolated in thought. [Lat., Res sacros non modo manibus attingi, sed ne cogitatione quidem violari fas fuit.]

Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.

The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed.

Dum Spiro, spero- As long as I breathe, I hope.

There is no duty more indispensible than that of returning a kindness.

The first bond of society is marriage.

Death darkens his eyes, and unplumes his wings, Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings: Live so, my Love, that when death shall come, Swan-like and sweet it may waft thee home.

This is our special duty, that if anyone specially needs our help, we should give him such help to the utmost of our power.

They are eloquent who can speak low things acutely, and of great things with dignity, and of moderate things with temper.

Unraveling the web of Penelope.

It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.

A perverse temper and fretful disposition will make any state of life whatsoever unhappy.

Nature has lent us life at interest, like money, and has fixed no day for its payment.

To freemen, threats are impotent.

To err is human, but to persevere in error is only the act of a fool.

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

Let flattery, the handmaid of the vices, be far removed .

Let the punishment be equal with the offence. [Lat., Noxiae poena par esto.]

I prefer silent prudence to loquacious folly.

I do not understand what the man who is happy wants in order to be happier.

As I breathe, I hope.

Pleasure blinds (so to speak) the eyes of the mind, and has no fellowship with virtue.

Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority.

Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to continue always a child.

He is sometimes slave who should be master; and sometimes master who should be slave.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

The sinews of war are infinite money.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.

We are bound by the law, so that we may be free.

The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

Of all the rewards of virtue, . . . the most splendid is fame, for it is fame alone that can offer us the memory of posterity.

Leisure with dignity.

No well-informed person has declared a change of opinion to be inconstancy.

The chief recommendation is modesty, then dutiful conduct toward parents, then affection for kindred.

Plato divinely calls pleasure the bait of evil, inasmuch as men are caught by it as fish by a hook.

The causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves.

The hours pass and the days and the months and the years, and the past time never returns.

The foundation of justice is good faith.

Because all the sick do not recover, therefore medicine is not an art.

Frugality includes all the other virtues.

Always the same thing.

Death approaches, which is always impending like the stone over Tantalus: then comes superstition with which he who is imbued can never have peace of mind.

It is a great proof of talents to be able to recall the mind from the senses, and to separate thought from habit.

Rashness attends youth, as prudence does old age.