Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes (428 Quotes)

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.

We cannot employ the mind to advantage when we are filled with excessive food and drink.

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

I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know.

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

He was stirring up billows in a ladle. Excitabat fluctus in simpulo.

What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

O fortunatam natam me consule Romam - O happy Rome, born when I was consul

Reason should direct and appetite obey.

Hatred is inveterate anger.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

A person who is wise does nothing against his will, nothing with sighing or under coercion.

Nothing troubles you for which you do not yearn.

The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.

In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.

There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften.

It was ordained at the beginning of the world that certain signs should prefigure certain events.

A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within....for the traitor appears not to be a traitor...he rots the soul of a nation...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

Empire and liberty.

Philosophy, rightly defined, is simply the love of wisdom.

A friend is, as it were, a second self.

Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

If I err in my belief that the souls of men are immortal, I err gladly, and do not wish to lose so delightful an error.

The soul in sleep gives proof of its divine nature.

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

As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age first it withdraws us from active accomplishments second, it renders the body less powerful third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment fourth, it

The absolute good is not a matter of opinion but of nature.

We need more agility in inspection, collection and laboratory analysis, since we've had positive results on the farms that have eliminated the sick plants upon detection,

For the Stoics do not say that a god is involved with the divisions in a particular liver or particular bird calls (which would be unbefitting, and unworthy of a god, and could not possibly happen) rather, the world was shaped from the beginning in

People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.

No one has lived a short life who has performed his duties with unblemished character.

The greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust.

Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.

Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.

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.

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.

Memory is the receptacle and sheath of all knowledge

In time of war the laws are silent.

Prudence is the knowledge of things to be sought, and those to be shunned.

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

As if a second self. Tamquam alter idem.

The countenance is the portrait of the mind, the eyes are its informers

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.

Law stands mute in the midst of arms.

Philosophy is the cultivation of the mental faculties it roots out vices and prepares the mind to receive proper seed.

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 preferred to all things.

Nothing is more praiseworthy, nothing more suited to a great and illustrious man than placability and a merciful disposition.

The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.