Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

A nation can survive its fools,
and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within.
An enemy at the gates is less formidable,
for he is known and carries his banner openly.
But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely,
his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys,
heard in the very halls of government itself.

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.

Do not blame Caesar,
blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions.
Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new,
wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome,
interpreted to mean 'more money,
more ease,
more security,
more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.'

Politicians are not born;
they are excreted.

Though liberty is established by law,
we must be vigilant,
for liberty to enslave us is always present under that very liberty.
Our Constitution speaks of the "general welfare of the people." Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by lusting tyrants to make us bondsmen.

A nation can survive its fools,
even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within....for the traitor appears not to be a traitor...he rots the soul of a nation...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes,
but poorer still is the nation that having heroes,
fails to remember and honor them.

There exists a law,
not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts;
a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself;
a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice,
not by instruction but by natural intuition.
I refer to the law which lays it down that,
if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies,
any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

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

Read at every wait;
read at all hours;
read within leisure;
read in times of labor;
read as one goes in;
read as one goest out.
The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

The Jews belong to a dark and repulsive force.
One knows how numerous this clique is,
how they stick together and what power they exercise through their unions.
They are a nation of rascals and deceivers.

A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men,
though he is needed as vultures are needed,
but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble.
I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty,
dull,
almost witless,
crafty or stupid,
an oppressor or a thief,
a holder of little authority in which he delights,
as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog.
Who can trust such creatures?

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom,
it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad.
Children no longer obey their parents,
and everyone is writing a book.

As I give thought to the matter,
I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age;
first,
it withdraws us from active accomplishments;
second,
it renders the body less powerful;
third,
it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment;
fourth,
it stands not far from death.

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

When a government becomes powerful it is destructive,
extravagant and violent;
it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance,
for votes with which to perpetuate itself.

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

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

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

Never was a government that was not composed of liars,
malefactors and thieves.

The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living.
The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time.
Anyone who was given love will always live on in another's heart.

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?

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

People don't know the value of what they have until it is gone: Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered....
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
Don't wait till freedom is gone before you enjoy,
value,
support,
protect and make the most of it!

A man would have no pleasures in discovering all the beauties of the universe,
even in heaven itself,
unless he had a partner to whom he might communicate his joys.

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

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

A nation can survive its fools,
and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within.

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

The higher we are placed,
the more humbly we should walk.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out,
so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character,
boils over and is at once dissipated,
and vanishes.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.

Take from a man his reputation for probity,
and the more shrewd and clever he is,
the more hated and mistrusted he becomes.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice,
may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

The budget should be balanced,
the treasury refilled,
public debt reduced,
the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled,
and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed,
lest Rome become bankrupt.

When you have no basis for an argument,
abuse the plaintiff.

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

If you wish to persuade me,
you must think my thoughts,
feel my feelings,
and speak my words.

Next to God we are nothing.
To God we are Everything.

Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

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

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech,
whether in a senator or an orator.

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

Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies,
and who believe this to be great and manly.
Nothing is so praiseworthy,
nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul,
as clemency and readiness to forgive.