Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC - December 7, 43 BC ) Orator and statesman of Ancient Rome

• A happy life consists in tranquillity of mind.

• A life of peace, purity, and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age.

• A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.

• Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.

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

• Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.

• As the old proverb says "Like readily consorts with like."

• Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger.

• Vi Et Armis
  • Translation: by force and arms.

• Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

• Vi Victa Vis
  • Translation: force overcome by force.

• Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

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

• He removes the greatest ornament of friendship, who takes away from it respect.

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

• If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.

• In men of the highest character and noblest genius there is to be found an insatiable desire for honour, command, power, and glory.

• 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.

• It is a great thing to know our vices.

• It is a true saying that "One falsehood leads easily to another".

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

• Appetitus Rationi Pareat
  • Translation: let your desires be ruled by reason.

• Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

• Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.

• Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion, or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.

• Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

• Nature herself makes the wise man rich.

• Neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language.

• Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.

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

• Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.

• Nothing quite new is perfect

• Obsequium parit amicos; veritas parit odium
  • Compliance produces friends; truth produces hate

• Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut alizuid dicere possint argutius.
  • Orators are indeed permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly.

• Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.

• Our thoughts are free.

• Quosque tandem
  • How long, pray? / To what lengths?

• Reason should direct and appetite obey.

• Strain every nerve to gain your point.

• Such praise coming from so degraded a source, was degrading to me, its recipient.

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

• 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.

• The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.

• The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret - that man is black at heart: mark and avoid him.

• The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquillity, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.

• The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong.

• Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex
  • Transliteration: The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.

• The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.

• There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.

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

• There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.

• To be content with what one has is the greatest and truest of riches.

• Suum Cuique
  • Translation: to each his own.

• We are obliged to respect, defend and maintain the common bonds of union and fellowship that exist among all members of the human race.

• We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition.

• We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.

• What we call pleasure, and rightly so is the absence of all pain.

• When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.

• Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?

• Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
  • Source: Pro Plancio, 54 B.C.

• While there's life, there's hope.
  • Source: Ad Atticum

• A friend is, as it were, a second self.
  • Source: De Amicitia

• The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.
  • Source: De Amicitia

• There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it.
  • Source: De Divinatione

• Let the punishment match the offense.
  • Source: De Legibus

• The people's good is the highest law.
  • Source: De Legibus

• Friendship make prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.
  • Source: ? , 44 B.C.

• If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.

• Endless money forms the sinews of war.
  • Source: Philippics

• Inter arma enim silent leges
  • Translation: Law stands mute in the midst of arms.
  • Or: In a time of war, the law falls silent.
  • Source: Pro Milone

• 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.
  • Source: Pro Publio Sestio

• The freedom of poetic license.
  • Source: Pro Publio Sestio

• Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

• A room without books is like a body without a soul.

• On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.
  • Source: The Extremes of Good and Evil, translated by H. Rackham in 1914
  • Is commonly used in its original classical Latin form as "Lorem ipsum ", or placeholder text for tests and demonstrations in publishing.

External links

• Read about Cicero's life
• Works of Cicero at the Latin Library
• Links to Cicero resources