Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

Guilt is present in the very hesitation, even though the deed be not committed.

Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat. [Lat., Esse oportet ut vivas, non vivere ut edas.]

The freedom of poetic license.

The dutifulness of children is the foundation of all virtues.

The searching-out and thorough investigation of truth ought to be the primary study of man.

He removes the greatest ornament of friendship who takes away from it respect.

It is disgraceful when the passers-by exclaim, "O ancient house! alas, how unlike is thy present master to thy former one.

Not to be avaricious is money; not to be fond of buying is a revenue; but to be content with our own is the greatest and most certain wealth of all.

In our amusements a certain limit is to be placed that we may not devote ourselves to a life of pleasure and thence fall into immorality.

Our country is wherever we are well off. [Lat., Patria est, ubicunque est bene.]

Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to please as expectation.

No one sees what is before his feet: they scan the tracks of heaven.

The foundation of justice is good faith.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Silent enim leges inter arma (Laws are silent in times of war).

The happiest end of life is this: when the mind and the other senses being unimpaired, the same nature which put it together takes asunder her own work.

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

The foolishness of old age does not characterize all who are old, but only the foolish.

I speak of that learning which wakes us acquainted with the boundless extent of nature, and the universe, and which even while we remain in this world, discovers to us both heaven, earth, and sea.

He who hangs on the errors of the ignorant multitude, must not be counted among great men.

Let flattery, the handmaid of the vices, be far removed (from friendship). [Lat., Assentatio, vitiorum adjutrix, procul amoveatur.]

We are all excited by the love of praise, and the noblest are most influenced by glory.

It shows nobility to be willing to increase your debt to a man to whom you already owe much.

In extraordinary events ignorance of their causes produces astonishment.

What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

There were poets before Homer.

Not to be covetous, is money; not to be a purchaser, is a revenue.

The forehead is the gate of the mind.

Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due.

There is nothing better fitted to delight the reader than change of circumstances and varieties of fortune.

Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left.

"What greater gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?"

People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.

In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.

In honorable dealing you should consider what you intended, not what you said or thought.

The proof of a well-trained mind is that it rejoices in which is good and grieves at the opposite.

Old age, especially an honored old age, has so great authority, that this is of more value than all the pleasures of youth.

There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.

Can any one find in what condition his body will be, I do not say a year hence, but this evening?

Men in no way approach so nearly to the gods as in doing good to men. [Lat., Homines ad deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam salutem hominibus dando.]

Everything that thou reprovest in another, thou must most carefully avoid in thyself. [Lat., Omnia quae vindicaris in altero, tibi ipsi vehementer fugienda sunt.]

The greatest incitement to guilt is the hope of sinning with impunity.

For my own part, I had rather be old only a short time than be old before I really am so.

No grief is so acute but time ameliorates it.