Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 – 43 BC
Born: 3 January 106 BC, Arpinum, Rome
Died: 7 December 43 BC, Formia, Rome
Cicero’s family was not one of those that controlled Rome’s Republican government but he had political ambition and went into law as a path to power. He was elected to all of the major Roman offices of the day (quaestor, aedile, praetor, and consul in turn), each on his first run, and each at the youngest eligible age for the office. Cicero was elected Consul for 63 BC, during which he thwarted an attempt to assassinate him and overthrow the Republic. At the conclusion of this, with the consent of the Senate but without a formal trial, he had the four conspirators strangled. Three years later he was asked to join the triumvirate ruling the empire but declined. It was then declared that anyone executing a Roman citizen without trial would be exiled and though Cicero argued against the rule he left for Thessalonica, Greece in 58 BC, he was recalled by the Senate a year and a half later. In 50 BC he sided with Pompey against Julius Caesar, but not too openly, and was not involved in the assassination on the Ides of March in the year 44 BC. Cicero and Mark Antony were the two leaders of Rome at that point, Cicero as spokesman for the Senate and Antony as leader of the Caesarean faction. Cicero’s attempt to drive Antony out of power failed and though he was willingly concealed by the public, two assassins found him the next year. His first love was politics, but he wrote books on rhetoric and philosophy when he couldn’t participate in the political arena, and a large number of his speeches were recorded, of which 58 survive.
Cicero quotes:
A friend is, as it were, a second self.
Cicero – De Amicitia (On Friendship, 44 BC)
A friend is, as it were, a second self.
Cicero
A home without books is a body without soul.
Cicero
A war is never undertaken by the ideal State, except in defense of its honor or its safety.
Cicero
Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey’s end.
Cicero
Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.
Cicero
As I approve of a youth who has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man who has something of the youth.
Cicero
By doubting we come at truth.
Cicero
Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.
Cicero
Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.
Cicero
Endless money forms the sinews of war.
Cicero
Exile is terrible to those who have, as it were, a circumscribed habitation; but not to those who look upon the whole globe but as one city.
Cicero
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Cicero
For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends?
Cicero
Freedom is] the power to live as you will. Who then lives as he wills?
Cicero
Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.
Cicero
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
Cicero – De Amicitia (On Friendship, 44 BC)
Friendship is the only thing in this world, the usefulness of which all mankind are in agreement.
Cicero
Friendship was given by nature to be an assistant to virtue, not a companion to vice.
Cicero
Genius is fostered by energy.
Cicero
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
Cicero
I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know.
Cicero
I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.
Cicero
I follow nature as my surest guide, and resign myself, with implicit obedience, to her sacred ordinances.
Cicero
I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
Cicero
I remind you, sir, that extreme patriotism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice no virtue.
Cicero
If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.
Cicero
If the soul has food for study and learning, nothing is more delightful than an old age of leisure.
Cicero
If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
Cicero
If you aspire to the highest place it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third.
Cicero
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
Cicero
In anger nothing right nor judicious can be done.
Cicero – De Officiis (On Duties, 44 BC)
In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.
Cicero
It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.
Cicero
It was our own moral failure and not any accident of chance, that while preserving the appearance of the Republic we lost its reality.
Cicero
Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.
Cicero
Justice renders to everyone his due.
Cicero
Law stands mute in the midst of arms.
Cicero
Let the punishment match the offense.
Cicero
Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by law.
Cicero
Men in no way approach so nearly to the gods as in doing good to men.
Cicero
My precept to all who build is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.
Cicero
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Cicero
Never injure a friend, even in jest.
Cicero
No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the hightest good.
Cicero
No one can give you better advice than yourself.
Cicero
No one dances sober, unless he is insane.
Cicero
No sane man will dance.
Cicero
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.
Cicero
Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.
Cicero
Nothing quite new is perfect.
Cicero
Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.
Cicero
One should be moderate in his jests.
Cicero
One should eat to live, not live to eat.
Cicero
Philosophy is the true mother of science.
Cicero
Pleasure is the absence of pain.
Cicero
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
Cicero
The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.
Cicero
The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.
Cicero
The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.
Cicero
The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.
Cicero
The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.
Cicero
The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.
Cicero
The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.
Cicero – De Amicitia (On Friendship, 44 BC)
The spirit is the true self.
Cicero
The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.
Cicero
The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.
Cicero
There is no place more delightful than home.
Cicero
There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.
Cicero – last words, to Herennius
There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
Cicero
There is nothing which wings its flight so swiftly as calumny, nothing is uttered with more ease; nothing is listened to with more readiness, nothing disbursed more widely.
Cicero
Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.
Cicero
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
Cicero
To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man’s lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?
Cicero
Too much liberty leads both men and nations to slavery.
Cicero
True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.
Cicero
Vivere est cogitare. (To think is to live)
Cicero
We are all motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is, the more he is inspired by glory.
Cicero
We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free.
Cicero
We are not born for ourselves alone
Cicero – De Officiis (On Duties, 44 BC)
We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition.
Cicero
We should measure affection, not like youngsters by the ardor of its passion, but by its strength and constancy.
Cicero
What is dignity without honesty?
Cicero
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.
Cicero
While there’s life, there’s hope.
Cicero
