Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

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

More law, less justice.

To live is to think.

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.

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

The safety of the people shall be the highest law.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

Honor is the reward of virtue.

A man of courage is also full of faith.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.

While there’s life, there’s hope.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.

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

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

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

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

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.

Whatever you do, do with all your might.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.

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.

No sane man will dance.

Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.

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

The good of the people is the greatest law.

The greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

A home without books is a body without soul.

Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.

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.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

True nobility is exempt from fear.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

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

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.

Rashness belongs to youth; prudence to old age.

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

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

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

The spirit is the true self. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure.

Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.