Cicero Life Quotes & Sayings

they follow nature as the most perfect guide to a good life. Now — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The counsels of the Divine Mind had some glimpse of truth when they said that men are born in order to suffer the penalty for sins committed in a former life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Some men make a womanish complaint that it is a great misfortune to die before our time. I would ask what time? Is it that of Nature? But she, indeed, has lent us life, as we do a sum of money, only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that you received it. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I have the better right to indulgence herein, because my devotion to letters strengthens my oratorical powers, and these, such as they are, have never failed my friends in their hour of peril. Yet insignificant though these powers may seem to be, I fully realize from what source I draw all that is highest in them. Had I not persuaded myself from my youth up, thanks to the moral lessons derived from a wide reading, that nothing is to be greatly sought after in this life save glory and honour, and that in their quest all bodily pains and all dangers of death or exile should be lightly accounted, I should never have borne for the safety of you all the burnt of many a bitter encounter, or bared my breast to the daily onsets of abandoned persons. All literature, all philosophy, all history, abounds with incentives to noble action, incentives which would be buried in black darkness were the light of the written word not flashed upon them. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy, but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

While there's life, there's hope. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

In our amusements a certain limit is to be placed that we may not devote ourselves to a life of pleasure and thence fall into immorality. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

History illumes reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Life is short, but art lives forever. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

To live is to think. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

How can life be worth living, to use the words of Ennius, which lacks that repose which is to be found in the mutual good-will of a friend? What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself? Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy? On the other hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if there were not some one to feel them even more acutely than yourself. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The most desirable thing in life after health and modest means is leisure with dignity. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nature has granted the use of life like a loan, without fixing any day for repayment. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Inability to tell good from evil is the greatest worry of man's life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Life without learning is death. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Those who lack within themselves the means for living a blessed and happy life will find any age painful.
- How to grow old: ancient wisdom for the second half of life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

No phase of life, whether public or private, can be free from duty. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

As Cicero would later declare, 'For what is the life of a man, if it is not interwoven with the life of former generations by a sense of history?"3 — Adrian Goldsworthy

I thought of kissing Astrid under the fire escape. I thought of Norm's rusty microbus and of his father, Cicero, sitting on the busted-down sofa in his old trailer, rolling dope in Zig-Zag papers and telling me if I wanted to get my license first crack out of the basket, I'd better cut my fucking hair. I thought of playing teen dances at the Auburn RolloDrome, and how we never stopped when the inevitable fights broke out between the kids from Edward Little and Lisbon High, or those from Lewiston High and St. Dom's; we just turned it up louder. I thought of how life had been before I realized I was a frog in a pot. I shouted: "One, two, you-know-what-to-do!" We kicked it in. Key of E. All that shit starts in E. — Stephen King

O philosophy, you leader of life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The spirit is the true self. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Life is nothing without friendship. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Other relaxations are peculiar to certain times, places and stages of life, but the study of letters is the nourishment of our youth, and the joy of our old age. They throw an additional splendor on prosperity, and are the resource and consolation of adversity; they delight at home, and are no embarrassment abroad; in short, they are company to us at night, our fellow travelers on a journey, and attendants in our rural recesses. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

A happy life consists in tranquility of mind. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

No one has lived a short life who has performed its duties with unblemished character. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

You might as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life: for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

My dear Scipio and Laelius. Men, of course, who have no resources in themselves for securing a good and happy life find every age burdensome. But those who look for all happiness from within can never think anything bad which Nature makes inevitable. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is long enough in which to live honorably and well. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Leisure consists in all those virtuous activities by which a man grows morally, intellectually, and spiritually. It is that which makes a life worth living. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

While the sick man has life, there is hope. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

To the sick, while there is life there is hope.
[Lat., Aegroto dum anima est, spes est.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

We must be ever on the search for some persons whom we shall love and who will love us in return. If good will and affection are taken away, every joy is taken from life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

As I continued through Cicero's pages, I found much more material celebrating my way of life ... — Charlie Munger

Nature has circumscribed the field of life within small dimensions, but has left the field of glory unmeasured. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens and to place it in cities, and even to introduce it into homes and compel it to inquire about life and standards and goods and evils. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

A perverse temper and fretful disposition will make any state of life whatsoever unhappy. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

probability is the very guide of life — Leonard Mlodinow

Nor do I regret that I have lived, since I have so lived that I think I was not born in vain, and I quit life as if it were an inn, not a home. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nature has lent us life at interest, like money, and has fixed no day for its payment. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

For no phase of life, whether public or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns oneself alone or dealing with another, can be without its moral duty; on the discharge of such duties depends all that is morally right, and on their neglect all that is morally wrong in life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Enjoy the blessing of strength while you have it and do not bewail it when it is gone, unless, forsooth, you believe that youth must lament the loss of infancy, or early manhood the passing of youth. Life's race-course is fixed; Nature has only a single path and that path is run but once, and to each stage of existence has been allotted its own appropriate quality; so that the weakness of childhood, the impetuosity of youth, the seriousness of middle life, the maturity of old age.. each bears some of Nature's fruit, which must be garnered in its own season. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I look upon the pleasure we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I would not live over my hours past ... not unto Cicero's ground because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse. — Thomas Browne

This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Old age: the crown of life, our play's last act. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Two distinctive traits especially identify beyond a doubt a strong and dominant character. One trait is contempt for external circumstances, when one is convinced that men ought to respect, to desire, and to pursue only what is moral and right, that men should be subject to nothing, not to another man, not to some disturbing passion, not to Fortune.
The second trait, when your character has the disposition I outlined just now, is to perform the kind of services that are significant and most beneficial; but they should also be services that are a severe challenge, that are filled with ordeals, and that endanger not only your life but also the many comforts that make life attractive.
Of these two traits, all the glory, magnificence, and the advantage, too, let us not forget, are in the second, while the drive and the discipline that make men great are in the former. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Don't be snowed by a handsome guy at a bookstore who quotes Cicero and Proust. They are often not the real thing. As with many fleeting pleasures
travel in their company, enjoy them every so often, and then get on with your life. — Jennifer Kaufman

The life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The vanity extended most of all to his library, arguably the real love of Cicero's life. It is difficult to name anything in which he took more pleasure, aside possibly evasion of the sumptuary laws. Cicero liked to believe himself wealthy. He prided himself on his books. He needed no further reason to dislike Cleopatra: intelligent women who had better libraries than he did offended him on three counts. — Stacy Schiff

Death is dreadful to the man whose all is extinguished with his life; but not to him whose glory never can die. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is fortune, not wisdom, that rules man's life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

What is the harm in returning to the point whence you came? He will live badly who does not know how to die well. So we must first strip off the value we set on this thing and reckon the breath of life as something cheap. To quote Cicero, we hate gladiators
if they are keen to save their life by any means; we favour them if they openly show contempt for it. — Seneca.

That human life depends upon resources, good soil, and governments with just procedures. — Noah Cicero

I cheerfully quit from life as if it were an inn, not a home; for Nature has given us a hostelry in which to sojourn, not to abide. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The whole life of a philosopher is the meditation of his death. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Here is a man whose life and actions the world has already condemned - yet whose enormous fortune ... has already brought him acquittal! — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I depart from life as from an inn, and not as from my home.
[Lat., Ex vita discedo, tanquam ex hospitio, non tanquam ex domo.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

A life of peace, purity and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Piety and holiness of life will propitiate the gods.
[Lat., Deos placatos pietas efficiet et sanctitas.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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? — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Each part of life has its own pleasures. Each has its own abundant harvest, to be garnered in season. We may grow old in body, but we need never grow old in mind and spirit. No one is as old as to think he or she cannot live one more year. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

By doubting we come at truth. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Man's life is ruled by fortune, not by wisdom. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is like taking the sun out of the world, to bereave human life of friendship. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The best Armour of Old Age is a well spent life preceding it; a Life employed in the Pursuit of useful Knowledge, in honourable Actions and the Practice of Virtue; in which he who labours to improve himself from his Youth, will in Age reap the happiest Fruits of them; not only because these never leave a Man, not even in the extremest Old Age; but because a Conscience bearing Witness that our Life was well-spent, together with the Remembrance of past good Actions, yields an unspeakable Comfort to the Soul — Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is no life without friendship — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Every stage of human life, except the last, is marked out by certain and defined limits; old age alone has no precise and determinate boundary. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

As a Roman philosopher, Cicero, said of him a few hundred years later, Socrates 'called philosophy down from the sky and established her in the towns and introduced her into homes and forced her to investigate life, ethics, good and evil. — Jostein Gaarder

History is the teacher of life — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is graceful in a man to think and to speak with propriety, to act with deliberation, and in every occurrence of life to find out and persevere in the truth. On the other hand, to be imposed upon, to mistake, to falter, and to be deceived, is as ungraceful as to rave or to be insane. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

If we lose affection and kindliness from our life: we lose all that gives it charm. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to live the life of a child forever. For what is a man's life, unless woven into the life of our ancestors by the memory of past deeds? — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Long life is denied us; therefore let us do something to show that we have lived. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life ... It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Nature, and suggests innumerable subjects for meditation. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquities. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I know not any season of life that is past more agreeably than virtuous old age. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Writers of literature, if they are real writers, know that their readers are confused about reality and the emotions derived from that reality and are looking for clarity concerning the life that they are engulfed in. — Noah Cicero

Just as apples when unripe are torn from trees, but when ripe and mellow drop down, so it is violence that takes life from young men, ripeness from old. This ripeness is so delightful to me that, as I approach nearer to death, I seem, as it were, to be sighting land, and to be coming to port at last after a long voyage. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Lucretius and Cicero testify to the view that people dream about the things that concern them in waking life. — Sigmund Freud

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. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero smiled at us. 'The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than destory one's spirit by worrying about them too far in advance. Especially tonight. — Robert Harris

The life of the dead is set in the memory of the living. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The most evident difference between man and animals is this: the beast, in as much as it is largely motivated by the senses and with little perception of the past or future, lives only for the present. But man, because he is endowed with reason by which he is able to perceive relationships, sees the causes of things, understands the reciprocal nature of cause and effect, makes analogies, easily surveys the whole course of his life, and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

For if that last day does not occasion an entire extinction, but a change of abode only, what can be more desirable? And if it, on the other hand, destroys and absolutely puts an end to us, what can be preferable to having a deep sleep fall on us in the midst of the fatigues of life and, being thus overtaken, to sleep to eternity? — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Through ignorance of what is good and what is bad, the life of men is greatly perplexed. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

O philosophy, life's guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

For what is the life of a man, if it is not interwoven with the life of former generations by as sense of history. [Cicero, quoted by Goldsworthy in his Augustus] — Adrian Goldsworthy

History is the witness of the times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity. — Marcus Tullius Cicero