Marcus Tullius Cicero
It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.Collection: Great
To live is to think.Collection: Life
Freedom is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.Collection: Freedom
Hatred is settled anger.Collection: Anger
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.Collection: Great
True nobility is exempt from fear.Collection: Fear
Laws are silent in time of war.Collection: War
The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.Collection: Knowledge
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.Collection: Age
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.Collection: Education
So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.Collection: Trust
As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.Collection: Age
Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.Collection: Great
That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.Collection: Change
Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: Crush
Politicians are not born; they are excreted.Collection: Politician
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.'Collection: Mean
Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.Collection: Liars
What society does to its children, so will its children do to society.Collection: Children
Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.Collection: Mistake
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.Collection: Exercise
More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.Collection: Opportunity
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.Collection: Rome
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.Collection: Powerful
The first duty of man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.Collection: Truth
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?Collection: Children
To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches.Collection: Gratitude
There are two ways to resolve conflicts, through violence or through negotiation. Violence is for wild beasts, negotiation is for human beings.Collection: Two
If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.Collection: Respect
It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.Collection: Quality
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.Collection: Tyrants
He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.Collection: Book
Because all the sick do not recover, therefore medicine is not an art.Collection: Art
Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to continue always a child.Collection: Children
He is sometimes slave who should be master; and sometimes master who should be slave.Collection: Slavery
To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.Collection: Philosophy
Let reason govern desire.Collection: War
The spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by your finger.Collection: Self
I am much beholden to old age, which has increased my eagerness for conversation in proportion as it has lessened my appetites of hunger and thirst.Collection: Age
Nothing is so unpredictable as a throw of the dice, and yet every man who plays often will at some time or other make a Venus-cast: now and then he indeed will make it twice and even thrice in succession. Are we going to be so feebleminded then as to aver that such a thing happened by the personal intervention of Venus rather than by pure luck?Collection: Men
The happiest end of life is this: when the mind and the other senses being unimpaired, the same nature which put it together takes asunder her own work.Collection: Mind
Sweet is the memory of past troubles.Collection: Sweet
Honor is the reward of virtue.Collection: Philosophical
I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money. Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.Collection: Men
For hardly any man dances when sober, unless he is insane. Nor does he dance while alone, nor at a respectable and moderate party. Dancing is the final phase of a wild party with fancy decorations and a multitude of delights.Collection: Dance
Friendship, on the other hand, serves a great host of different purposes all at the same time. In whatever direction you turn, it still remains yours. No barrier can shut it out. It can never be untimely; it can never be in the way. We need friendship all the time, just as much as we need the proverbial prime necessities of life, fire and water.Collection: Friendship