Cicero Quotes

226 Sourced Quotes

To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?

Cicero
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Cicero
What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun.

Cicero
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Cicero
I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life... It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Nature, and suggests innumerable subjects for meditation.

Cicero
I have always been of the opinion that infamy earned by doing what is right is not infamy at all, but glory.

Cicero
Friendship is the only point in human affairs concerning the benefit of which all, with one voice, agree.

Cicero
For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.

Cicero
But still anger ought be far from us, for nothing is able to be done rightly nor judiciously with anger.

Cicero
We may, indeed, indulge in sport and jest, but in the same way as we enjoy sleep or other relaxations, and only when we have satisfied the claims of our earnest, serious task.

Cicero
As a field, though fertile, cannot yield a harvest without cultivation, no more can the mind without learning; each is feeble without the other.

Cicero
I would rather be wrong with Plato than right with such men as these [the Pythagoreans].

Cicero
History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life, and brings us tidings of antiquity.

Cicero
Thus nature has no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on some support; and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate friendship.

Cicero
From the beginning of the world it has been ordained that certain signs must needs precede certain events.

Cicero
For he delivers his opinions as though he were living in Plato's Republic rather than among the dregs of Romulus.
Of M. Porcius Cato, the Younger

Cicero
O immortal gods! Men do not realize how great a revenue parsimony can be!

Cicero
It is graceful in a man to think and to speak with propriety, to act with deliberation, and in every occurrence of life to find out and persevere in the truth. On the other hand, to be imposed upon, to mistake, to falter, and to be deceived, is as ungraceful as to rave or to be insane.

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

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

Cicero
For the life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

Cicero
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.

Cicero
But what is the benefit (you have done me)? That you did not kill me at Brundisium?

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

Cicero
All I can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity.

Cicero
When the young die I am reminded of a strong flame extinguished by a torrent; but when old men die it is as if a fire had gone out without the use of force and of its own accord, after the fuel had been consumed; and, just as apples when they are green are with difficulty plucked from the tree, but when ripe and mellow fall of themselves, so, with the young, death comes as a result of force, while with the old it is the result of ripeness.

Cicero
He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.

Cicero
As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars.

Cicero
Where pleasure prevails, all the greatest virtues will lose their power.

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

Cicero