Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Politicians are not born; they are excreted.”

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

“Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.”

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

“The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.”

“Cultivation of the mind is as necessary as food to the body”

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

“The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.”

“Never injure a friend, even in jest.”

“In this statement, my Scipio, I build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. And by this definition it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot and indeed this is the most odious of all tyrannies, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and mask of the people.”

“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.”

“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”

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

“Let us assume that entertainment is the sole end of reading; even so I think you would hold that no mental employment is so broadening to the sympathies or so enlightening to the understanding. Other pursuits belong not to all times, all ages, all conditions; but this gives stimulus to our youth and diversion to our old age; this adds a charm to success, and offers a haven of consolation to failure. Through the night-watches, on all our journeyings, and in our hours of ease, it is our unfailing companion.”

“As for myself, I can only exhort you to look on Friendship as the most valuable of all human possessions, no other being equally suited to the moral nature of man, or so applicable to every state and circumstance, whether of prosperity or adversity, in which he can possibly be placed. But at the same time I lay it down as a fundamental axiom that "true Friendship can only subsist between those who are animated by the strictest principles of honour and virtue." When I say this, I would not be thought to adopt the sentiments of those speculative moralists who pretend that no man can justly be deemed virtuous who is not arrived at that state of absolute perfection which constitutes, according to their ideas, the character of genuine wisdom. This opinion may appear true, perhaps, in theory, but is altogether inapplicable to any useful purpose of society, as it supposes a degree of virtue to which no mortal was ever capable of rising.”

“I criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”

“A mental stain can neither be blotted out by the passage of time nor washed away by any waters.”

“Mea mihi conscientia pluris est quam omnium sermo”

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.”

“Dum Spiro, spero”

“For while we are enclosed in these confinements of the body, we perform as a kind of duty the heavy task of necessity; for the soul from heaven has been cast down from its dwelling on high and sunk, as it were, into the earth, a place just the opposite to godlike nature and eternity. But I believe that the immortal gods have sown souls in human bodies so there might exist beings to guard the world and after contemplating the order of heaven, might imitate it by their moderation and steadfastness in life.”

“Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.”

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

“The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.”

“Freedom is participation in power.”

“Non nobis solum nati sumus.(Not for ourselves alone are we born.)”

“Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.”

“Endless money forms the sinews of war.”

“God's law is 'right reason.' When perfectly understood it is called 'wisdom.' When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called 'justice.”

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

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

“Calamus fortior gladio.”

“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”

“It is a great thing to know your vices.”

“In times of war, the law falls silent.Silent enim leges inter arma”

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

“For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.”

“We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.”

“Sed nescio quo modo nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosphorum. (There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.)”

“To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.”

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”

“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief”

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”