Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes:

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Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey's end.
I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.
Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.
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.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.
Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.
No one can give you better advice than yourself.
In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.
Sweet is the memory of past troubles.
Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.
An unjust peace is better than a just war.
We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.
Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.
Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.
Take from a man his reputation for probity, and the more shrewd and clever he is, the more hated and mistrusted he becomes.
Laws are silent in time of war.
If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.
Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.
I criticize by creation - not by finding fault.
In time of war the laws are silent.
No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.
It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.
True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.
Old age: the crown of life, our play's last act.
Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.
Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?
The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.
That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.
A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.
If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
Ability without honor is useless.
Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.
I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money! Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.
I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.
Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.
For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.
One who sees the Supersoul accompanying the individual soul in all bodies and who understands that neither the soul nor the Supersoul is ever destroyed, actually sees.
Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.
Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.
More law, less justice.
The more laws, the less justice.
In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.
Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due.
No sane man will dance.
There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.
No obligation to do the impossible is binding.
He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.
Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.
It shows nobility to be willing to increase your debt to a man to whom you already owe much.
It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.
In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.
Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.
You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.
A man of courage is also full of faith.
In times of war, the law falls silent.Silent enim leges inter arma
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.
The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.
Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.
There are gems of thought that are ageless and eternal.
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
It is disgraceful when the passers-by exclaim, "O ancient house! alas, how unlike is thy present master to thy former one.
A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues. [Lat., Gratus animus est una virtus non solum maxima, sed etiam mater virtutum onmium reliquarum.]
Nature abhors annihilation.
What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.
Reason should direct, and appetite obey.
Life is short, but art lives forever.
Like associates with like.
It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
It is foolish to pluck out one's hair for sorrow, as if grief could be assuaged by baldness. [Lat., Stultum est in luctu capillum sibi evellere, quasi calvito maeror levaretur.]
No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.
No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest god. [Lat., Fortis vero, dolorem summum malum judicans; aut temperans, voluptatem summum bonum statuens, esse certe nullo modo potest.]
Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
A letter does not blush.
Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.
Work makes a callus against grief.
The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.
When trying a case [the famous judge] L. Cassius never failed to inquire "Who gained by it?" Man's character is such that no one undertakes crimes without hope of gain.
Lucius Cassius ille quem populus Romanus verissimum et sapientissimum iudicem putabat identidem in causis quaerere solebat 'cui bono' fuisset. The famous Lucius Cassius, whom the Roman people used to regard as a very honest and wise judge, was in the habit of asking, time and again, 'To whose benefit?
The well-known old remark of Cato, who used to wonder how two soothsayers could look one another in the face without laughing.
When confronted by a hungry wolf, it is unwise to goad the beast, as Cato would have us do. But it is equally unwise to imagine the snarling animal a friend and offer your hand, as Pompey does." "Perhaps you would have us climb a tree!
The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs.
Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts, it is something celestial and divine.
Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.
Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.
We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.
Frivolity is inborn, conceit acquired by education.
These studies are a spur to the young, a delight to the old: an ornament in prosperity, a consoling refuge in adversity; they are pleasure for us at home, and no burden abroad; they stay up with us at night, they accompany us when we travel, they are with us in our country visits.
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.
Not to be covetous, is money; not to be a purchaser, is a revenue.
This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.
The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.
Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.
It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one: what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.
Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.
Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.
For out of such an ungoverned populace one is usually chosen as a leader, someone bold and unscrupulous who curries favor with the people by giving them other men's property. To such a man the protection of public office is given, and continually renewed. He emerges as a tyrant over the very people who raised him to power.
While all other things are uncertain, evanescent, and ephemeral, virtue alone is fixed with deep roots; it can neither be overthrown by any violence or moved from its place.
Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.
It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.
Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.
Dogs wait for us faithfully.
In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred.

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