Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

“There is no praise in being upright, where no one can, or tries to corrupt you.”

“These (literary) studies are the food of youth, and consolation of age; they adorn prosperity, and are the comfort and refuge of adversity; they are pleasant at home, and are no incumbrance abroad; they accompany us at night, in our travels, and in our rural retreats.”

“I cease not to advocate peace; even though unjust it is better than the most just war.”

“What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?”

“In anger nothing right nor judicious can be done.”

“True law is right reason in agreement with nature;...it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions... It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely.”

“A youth of sensuality and intemperance delivers over to old age a worn-out body.”

“Man was born for two things--thinking and acting.”

“Nothing is too absurd to be said by some of the philosophers.”

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

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

“I do not now so much as wish to have the Strength of Youth again that I wish'd in Youth for the Strength of an Ox or Elephant. For it is our Business only to make the best Use we can of the Powers granted us by Nature.”

“There is pleasure in calm remembrance of a past sorrow.”

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

“The aim of forensic oratory is to teach, to delight, to move.”

“In friendship we find nothing false or insincere; everything is straight forward, and springs from the heart.”

“To those who are engaged in commercial dealings, justice is indispensable for the conduct of business.”

“Trust no one unless you have eaten much salt with him.”

“Extreme justice is extreme injustice.”

“So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.”

“I know not any season of life that is past more agreeably than virtuous old age.”

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

“I prefer the wisdom of the uneducated to the folly of the loquacious.”

“Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to please as expectation.”

“A sensual and intemperate youth hands over a worn-out body to old age.[Lat., Libidinosa etenim et intemperans adolescentiam effoetum corpus tradit senectuti.]”