Cicero's Quotes & Sayings

apophthegmata) on a variety of topics.72 It's easy to tell the difference between a proper joke and a vulgar one. The first is appropriate for the most serious kind of person in a light mood on the right occasion. The other, if it involves a disgraceful subject or obscene language, doesn't suit even an easy-going fellow. There are limits to be observed in play and recreation as well. We don't want to abandon all precaution and, carried away by our sense of enjoyment, end up disgracing ourselves. Examples of appropriate kinds of recreation include exercising on the Campus Martius,73 also hunting. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Then bullets finally took down Monica and Michael. One went through Michael's stomach and he fell to the ground screaming. Another bullet pierced Monica's lung. She lay there trying to talk, trying to breath, but nothing. She knew that she was going to die. Michael looked at her and crawled toward her, his guts dragging in the sand, scraping on rocks as he crawled. He made it over to Monica, cradled her in his arms. Her body twitched in his arms. It took everything he had but he spooned her like they were just going to sleep for the night. He put his arm around her and said into her ear, "Let's watch a movie on Netflix," and they both died. — Noah Cicero

Princeton applicants had to know Virgil, Cicero's orations, and Latin grammar and also had to be 'so well acquainted with Greek as to render any part of the four Evangelists in that language into Latin or English. — Ron Chernow

Fortune, not wisdom, rules lives. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Men think they may justly do that for which they have a precedent. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

At bottom, politics was a hullabaloo of equal and individual competitors who would only be guaranteed to cooperate for one cause: the elimination of anybody who threatened to step out of line and grab too much power for himself. It follows that there was nothing resembling today's political parties ... Since the fall of the monarchy in 510 BC, Roman domestic politics had been a long, inconclusive class struggle, suspended for long periods by foreign wars. during one never-to-be-forgotten confrontation over a debt crisis in 493 BC, the entire population withdrew its labor (14). — Anthony Everitt

He talks like he's living in Plato's Republic, not Romulus's shit-hole. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

There never was a great soul that did not have some divine inspiration. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The nearer I approach death the more I feel like one who is in sight of land at last and is about to anchor in one's home port after a long voyage. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is a difference between justice and consideration in one's relations to one's fellow men. It is the function of justice not to do wrong to one's fellow men of considerateness, not to wound their feelings. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? In heaven's name,Catiline, how long will you abuse ourpatience? — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I never admire another's fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is also a tradition about Socrates. He liked walking, it is recorded, until a late hour of the evening, and when someone asked him why he did this he said he was trying to work up an appetite for his dinner. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

If the Aeneid is language as metaphor, as the sacramental ritualizing of human experience, Cicero's speeches are language as practical tool. — Thomas Cahill

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

You know what's amusing?
How people in this so-called American Liberty Movement constantly forward ideas as if nobody had ever thought of them before.
If any of these fucktards had ever read Pliny, Cicero, Plutarch or Suetonius, they would know that nearly all political ideas were old news by the time of the Emperor Caligula.
The American educational system is officially shit as far as I can tell. — Sienna McQuillen

Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man. — Thomas Hobbes

A bachelor's bed is the most pleasant. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Who does not know history's first law to be that an author must not dare to tell anything but the truth? And its second that he must make bold to tell the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of partiality anywhere in his writings? Nor of malice? — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Now in regard to trades and other means of livelihood, which ones are to be considered becoming to a gentleman and which ones are vulgar, we have been taught, in general, as follows. First, those means of livelihood are rejected as undesirable which incur people's ill-will, as those of tax-gatherers and usurers. Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

The accepted etymology of the word religion was that it came from religere, meaning "to bind together," but Cicero had said its true root was relegere, "to reread." The truth was, she liked both answers. — James S.A. Corey

What is more agreeable than one's home? — Marcus Tullius Cicero

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

They were sitting in their nice apartments or dorm rooms reading the latest Haruki Murakami story while I was sitting in a shitty little ramshackle house reading a used copy of Erskine Caldwell's God's Little Acre. They weren't bad people. They all did volunteer work, voted Democrat and believed in the goodness of humanity. I voted Democrat, needed Habitat for Humanity to come to my house and knew from personal experience the shittiness of humanity because I was shitty myself. — Noah Cicero

For he (Cato) gives his opinion as if he were in Plato's Republic, not in Romulus' cesspool. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Man's best support is a very dear friend. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is not only arrogant, but it is profligate, for a man to disregard the world's opinion of himself. — Marcus Tullius 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. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is a man's own dishonesty, his crimes, his wickedness, and boldness, that takes away from him soundness of mind; these are the furies, these the flames and firebrands, of the wicked. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs. — Plutarch

Mine is the disaster, if disaster there be; and to be severely distressed at one's own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend, but that you love yourself. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

We can more easily avenge an injury than requite a kindness; on this account, because there is less difficulty in getting the better of the wicked than in making one's self equal with the good. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is difficult to tell how much men's minds are conciliated by a kind manner and gentle speech. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

As praetor, Cicero was expected to take in promising pupils from good families to study law with him, and in May, after the Senate recess, a new young intern of sixteen joined his chambers. This was Marcus Caelius Rufus from Interamnia, the son of a wealthy banker and prominent election official of the Velina tribe. Cicero agreed, largely as a political favor, to supervise the boy's training — Robert Harris

Great individuals find a way to transform weakness into strength. It's a rather amazing and even touching feat. They took what should have held them back - what in fact might be holding you back right this very second - and used it to move forward. As it turns out, this is one thing all great men and women of history have in common. Like oxygen to a fire, obstacles became fuel for the blaze that was their ambition. Nothing could stop them, they were (and continue to be) impossible to discourage or contain. Every impediment only served to make the inferno within them burn with greater ferocity. These were people who flipped their obstacles upside down. Who lived the words of Marcus Aurelius and followed a group which Cicero called the only "real philosophers" - the ancient Stoics - even if they'd never read them. They had the ability to see obstacles for what they were, the ingenuity to tackle them, and the will to endure a world mostly beyond their comprehension and control. — Ryan Holiday

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

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Since it's clear then that what sets itself in motion is eternal, who could fail to attribute such a nature to the soul. Anything set in motion by external impetus is inanimate; what is animate moves by its own interior impulse. This is the nature and power of soul. And because it is the one thing out of all that sets itself in motion, then surely it was never born and will last forever. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Another of Cicero's maxims was that if you must do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, for in politics there is no credit to be won by timidity. — Robert Harris

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

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

Let arms yield to the toga, let the [victor's] laurel yield to the [orator's] tongue. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Look closely at these self-evident truths, these imperishable articles of American Faith upon which all our government is firmly based. First and foremost is the existence of God. Next comes the truth that all men are equal in the sight of God. Third is the fact of God's great gift of unalienable rights to every person on earth. Then follows the true and single purpose of all American Government, namely, to preserve and protect these God-made rights of God-made man. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Would I fortify myself against the fear of death, it must be at the expense of Seneca: would I extract consolation for myself or my friend, I must borrow it from Cicero. I might have found it in myself, had I been trained to make use of my own reason. I do not like this relative and mendicant understanding; for though we could become learned by other men's learning, a man can never be wise but by his own wisdom. — Michel De Montaigne

Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children? — Marcus Tullius Cicero

For every man's nature is concealed with many folds of disguise, and covered as it were with various veils. His brows, his eyes, and very often his countenance, are deceitful, and his speech is most commonly a lie. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I would not have Drool reading Cicero or crafting clever riddles, but under my tutelage he had become more than fair at tumbling and juggling, could belch a song, and was, at court, at least as entertaining as a trained bear, with slightly less proclivity for eating the guests. With guidance, he would make a proper fool. — Christopher Moore

The home is the empire! There is no peace more delightful than one's own fireplace. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nevertheless, the movement of intelligence over western and southern Europe was as rapid in Caesar's day as at any time before the railway. In 54 B.C.. Caesar's letter from Britain reached Cicero at Rome in twenty-nine days; in 1834 Sir Robert Peel, hurrying from Rome to London, required thirty days.20 — Will Durant

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

If Clinton's answers come off as well-intended lectures, Obama is offering soaring sermons and generational opportunity. In 1960, the articulate Adlai Stevenson compared his own oratory unfavorably with John F. Kennedy's. "Do you remember," Stevenson said, "that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke,' but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said, 'Let us march.' " At this hour, Obama is the Democrats' Demosthenes. — E.J. Dionne Jr.

The avarice of the old: it's absurd to increase one's luggage as one nears the journey's end. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

In the years of the Roman Republic, before the Christian era, Roman education was meant to produce those character traits that would make the ideal family man. Children were taught primarily to be good to their families. To revere gods, one's parents, and the laws of the state were the primary lessons for Roman boys. Cicero described the goal of their child rearing as self- control, combined with dutiful affection to parents, and kindliness to kindred. — C. Sommerville

Judge not by the number, but by the weight. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Whatever is graceful is virtuous, and whatever is virtuous is graceful. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is foolish to pluck out one's hair for sorrow, as if grief could be assuaged by baldness.
[Lat., Stultum est in luctu capillum sibi evellere, quasi calvito maeror levaretur.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nothing dries sooner than a tear. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

At first I thought I would never recover from Cicero's death. But time wipes out everything, even grief. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that grief is almost entirely a question of perspective. For the first few years I used to sigh and think, 'Well, he would still be in his sixties now,' and then a decade later, with surprise, 'My goodness, he would be seventy-five,' but nowadays I think, 'Well, he would be long since dead in any case, so what does it matter how he died in comparison with how he lived? — Robert Harris

He he he ... Crazy? Cicero? He he he he! That's ... madness ... — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Hmm ... That's like telling you about the cold of space, or terror of midnight. Sithis is all those things. He is ... the Void. — 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

When trying a case [the famous judge] L. Cassius never failed to inquire "Who gained by it?" Man's character is such that no one undertakes crimes without hope of gain. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero said: "Not to have a mania for buying, is to possess a revenue." Many are carried away by the habit of bargain-buying. "Here's something wonderfully cheap; let's buy it." "Have you any use for it?" "No, not at present; but it is sure to come in useful, some time. — Orison Swett Marden

Lay down this rule of friendship: neither ask nor consent to do what is wrong. The plea, 'for friendship's sake,' is a discreditable one, and should not be admitted for a moment. We should ask from friends and do for friends only what is good. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Every man's reputation proceeds from those of his own household. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero's words also increased my personal satisfaction by supporting my long-standing rejection of a conventional point of view. — Charlie Munger

Cicero said that gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. If that's true, then my happiness does not cause me to be grateful for what I have. My gratitude for what I have causes me to be happy. Gratitude births the virtue of happiness. — Jennifer Dukes Lee

Should this my firm persuasion of the soul's immortality prove to be a mere delusion, it is at least a pleasing delusion, and I will cherish it to my last breath. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

(I)t was by Cicero's attainments that that he'd gained special witness to the liberals' adjustment to a brush with actual equality. — Jonathan Lethem

For out of such an ungoverned populace one is usually chosen as a leader, someone bold and unscrupulous who curries favor with the people by giving them other men's property. To such a man the protection of public office is given, and continually renewed. He emerges as a tyrant over the very people who raised him to power. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

This usually happens in the white-collar classes: These people take to worshipping pointlessness. Examples are Twin Peaks, Christo's artwork, and academic liberal politics. But a strange thing happens; these people view their ultra pointlessness as a way of being like God. — Noah Cicero

Apollo, sacred guard of earth's true core, Whence first came frenzied, wild prophetic word ... — Marcus Tullius Cicero

A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero gave an account of a party attended by a certain Quintus Gallius, a friend of Catilina, which evokes the raffish atmosphere of his circle. There are shouts and screams, screeching females, there is deafening music. I thought I could make out some people entering and others leaving, some of them staggering from the effects of the wine, some of them still yawning from yesterday's boozing. Among them was Gallius, perfumed and wreathed with flowers; the floor was filthy, soiled with wine and covered with withered garlands and fish bones. — Anthony Everitt

The best stuff that Cicero wrote, in the first century in Rome, were the Philippics, a series of speeches that he delivered against Marc Antony, whom he thought was irreparably dismantling the Republic of Rome. Those speeches are powerful because they're not only really pointed but they're thrillingly beautiful - and that's precisely what made them dangerous: the fact that people wanted to read them. — John D'Agata

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

In 77 BC, Cicero used the evidence of a client's well-kept ledger to argue in court for his good character and trustworthiness, saying, 'day-books last for a month, ledgers for ever . . . day-books embrace the memory of a moment, ledgers attest the good faith and conscientiousness which ensure a man's reputation for all time'. — Jane Gleeson-White

When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's [children's] minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die. — 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

Quacks pretend to cure other men's disorders, but fail to find a remedy for their own. — 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

Well, good luck to you both. Rome will be the winner whoever is the victor'. Cicero began to move away but then checked himself, and a slight frown crossed his face. He returned to Catulus. 'One more thing, if I may? Who proposed this widening of the franchise?' 'Caesar' Although Latin is a language rich in subtlety and metaphor, I cannot command the words, either in that tongue or even in Greek, to describe Cicero's expression at that moment. 'Dear gods' he said in a tone of utter shock. 'Is it possible he means to stand himself?' 'Of course not. That would be ridiculous. He's far too young. He's thirty-six. He's not yet even been elected praetor' 'Yes, but even so, in my opinion, you would be well advised to reconvene your college as quickly as possible and go back to the existing method of selection.' 'That is impossible' 'Why?' 'The bill to change the franchise was laid before the people this morning' 'By whom?' 'Labienus' 'Ah!' Cicero clapped his hand to his forehead. — Robert Harris

Lincoln was not an intellectual, but no one in 200 years understood the language of the King James Bible or learned Blackstone's Laws of England, or Cicero, or the language of the Founding Fathers, better than he did. — Michael Ignatieff

The reality of social networking sites is that they provide platforms for online personae to interact with other online personae. Importantly, such relationships can be ended with a click of an 'unfriend,' 'unfollow,' or 'block' button. Breaking up like this constitutes a morally lightweight action. Certainly it flies in the face of Cicero's advice that a friendship 'should seem to fade away rather than to be stamped out.' The respect that Cicero demanded that we pay to a friendship, even one that has turned sour, did not anticipate the tenuous connection inherent in being a facebook friend. — Marilyn Yalom

Astrology fell into the class of a fake lie ... and not worth the efforts of the debunking engine Cicero had been born with in place of a brain. Cicero's capacities were reserved for lies that mattered. Ideology, though that word was yet unknown to him: the veil of sustaining fiction that drove the world, what people needed to believe. This, Cicero wished to unmask and unmake, decry and destroy. (p. 65) — Jonathan Lethem

Let - not - your - heart - be - troubled. In - my - Father's - house - are - many - mansions. I - go - to - prepare - a - place - for - you." Cicero, — Harriet Beecher Stowe

He reaches for his pen. He yawns and puts it down and picks it up again. I shall be found dead at my desk, he thinks, like the poet Petrarch. The poet wrote many unsent letters: he wrote to Cicero, who died twelve hundred years before he was born. He wrote to Homer, who possibly never even existed; but I, I have enough to do with Lord Lisle, and the fish traps, and the Emperor's galleons tossing on the Middle Sea. Between one dip of the pen, Petrarch writes, 'between one dip of the pen and the next, the time passes: and I hurry, I drive myself, and I speed towards death. We are always dying - I while I write, you while you read, and others while they listen or block their ears; they are all dying. — Hilary Mantel

Freedom is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Every man's friend is no man's friend. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I conclude, then, that the plea of having acted in the interests of a friend is not a valid excuse for a wrong action ... We may then lay down this rule of friendship
neither ask nor consent to do what is wrong. For the plea "for friendship's sake" is a discreditable one, and not to be admitted for a moment. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Anyone may fairly seek his own advantage, but no one has a right to do so at another's expense. — Marcus Tullius Cicero