Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

#1. No sober person dances.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#2. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#3. Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praise, ye laurels.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#4. The wise man knows nothing if he cannot benefit from his wisdom. Wisdom is not only to be acquired, but also to be utilized.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#5. The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#6. The avarice of the old: it's absurd to increase one's luggage as one nears the journey's end.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#7. No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#8. All action is of the mind and the mirror of the mind is the face, its index the eyes.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#9. The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another's heart.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#10. He is rich who wishes no more than he has.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#11. Even while Jerusalem was standing and the Jews were at peace with us, the practice of their sacred rites was at variance with the glory of our empire, the dignity of our name, the customs of our ancestors.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#12. Hours and days and months and years go by; the past returns no more, and what is to be we cannot know; but whatever the time gives us in which we live, we should therefore be content.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#13. War should be undertaken in such a way as to show that its only object is peace.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#14. I look upon the pleasure we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#15. From all sides there is equally a way to the lower world.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#16. We can more easily avenge an injury than requite a kindness; on this account, because there is less difficulty in getting the better of the wicked than in making one's self equal with the good.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#17. The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#18. Fire and water are not of more universal use than friendship.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#19. I have never yet known a poet who did not think himself super-excellent.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#20. Let arms give place to the robe, and the laurel of the warriors yield to the tongue of the orator.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#23. Every man's reputation proceeds from those of his own household.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#24. 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.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#25. Rashness belongs to youth; prudence to old age.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#26. We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#27. The first duty of man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#28. I cheerfully quit from life as if it were an inn, not a home; for Nature has given us a hostelry in which to sojourn, not to abide.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#29. It is our duty, my young friends, to resist old age.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#30. He who has a garden and a library wants for nothing.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#31. Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#32. The First Bond of Society is Marriage.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#33. Care must be taken that the punishment does not exceed the offence.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#34. No tempest or conflagration, however great, is harder to quell than mob carried away by the novelty of power.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#35. A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#36. An agreement of rash men (a conspiracy).

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#37. It is a man's own dishonesty, his crimes, his wickedness, and boldness, that takes away from him soundness of mind; these are the furies, these the flames and firebrands, of the wicked.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#39. We all are imbued with the love of praise.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#40. Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#41. Never can custom conquer nature, for she is ever unconquered.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#42. Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#43. To freemen, threats are impotent.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#44. It is not only arrogant, but it is profligate, for a man to disregard the world's opinion of himself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#45. No grief is so acute but time ameliorates it.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#47. No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#48. The evil implanted in man by nature spreads so imperceptibly, when the habit of wrong-doing is unchecked, that he himself can set no limit to his shamelessness.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#49. There is no duty more obligatory than the repayment of kindness.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#50. No one has lived a short life who has performed its duties with unblemished character.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#51. Freedom is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#52. The process, indeed, of nature is this: that just in the same manner as our birth was the beginning of things with us, so death will be the end; and as we were noways concerned with anything before we were born, so neither shall we be after we are dead. And

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#53. No one sees what is before his feet: we all gaze at the stars.
[Lat., Quod est ante pedes nemo spectat: coeli scrutantur plagas.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#54. Promises are not to be kept, if the keeping of them would prove harmful to those to whom you have made them.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#55. Justice extorts no reward, no kind of price; she is sought, therefore, for her own sake.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#56. For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#57. There is not a moment without some duty.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#58. Friendship was given by nature to be an assistant to virtue, not a companion in vice.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#59. Law applied to its extreme is the greatest injustice

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#61. There is no one so old as to not think they may live a day longer.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#62. Summer lasts not for ever; seasons succeed each other.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#63. Endless money forms the sinews of war.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#64. Mine is the disaster, if disaster there be; and to be severely distressed at one's own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend, but that you love yourself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#65. 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.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#66. It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#67. Law stands mute in the midst of arms.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#68. There is in superstition a senseless fear of God.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#69. If you wish to remove avarice you must remove its mother, luxuries.
[Lat., Avaritiam si tollere vultis, mater ejus est tollenda, luxuries.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#70. If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#71. Let the force of arms give place to law and justice.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#72. 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.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#73. If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#74. I will go further, and assert that nature without culture can often do more to deserve praise than culture without nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#75. In all matters, before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#76. The wise man never loses his temper.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#77. Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#78. Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#79. The hope of impunity is the greatest inducement to do wrong.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#80. Let art, then, imitate nature, find what she desires, and follow as she directs. For in invention nature is never last, education never first; rather the beginnings of things arise from natural talent, and ends are reached by discipline.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#81. The whole life of a philosopher is the meditation of his death.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#82. Prosperity demands of us more prudence and moderation than adversity.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#83. Man must suffer to be wise.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#85. After victory, you have more enemies.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#86. The soil of their native land is dear to all the hearts of mankind.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#87. Wars are to be undertaken in order that it may be possible to live in peace without molestation.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#88. There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#89. Prudence must not be expected from a man who is never sober.
[Lat., Non est ab homine nunquam sobrio postulanda prudentia.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#90. Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#91. A community is like the ones who govern it.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#92. 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.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#93. What is more agreeable than one's home?

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#94. No power is strong enough to be lasting if it labors under the weight of fear.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#95. Friendship embraces innumerable ends; turn where you will it is ever at your side; no barrier shuts it out; it is never untimely and never in the way.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#96. 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.

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#97. How much in love with himself, and that too without a rival!

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#98. It is not the place that maketh the person, but the person that maketh the place honorable.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#99. No man should so act as to make a gain out of the ignorance of another.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#100. There is also a tradition about Socrates. He liked walking, it is recorded, until a late hour of the evening, and when someone asked him why he did this he said he was trying to work up an appetite for his dinner.

Marcus Tullius Cicero