Cicero Quotes
Most popular Cicero Quotes
No sane man will dance.
Thrift is a great revenue.
The law is silent during war.
What is dignity without honesty?
Peace is liberty in tranquillity.
Freedom is participation in power.
Where there is life there is hope.
While there is life, there is hope.
The sinews of war, unlimited money.
Laws are silent in the midst of arms.
They damn what they do not understand.
The beginning of all things are small.
A friend is, as it were, a second self.
A man of courage is also full of faith.
The good of the people is the chief law.
The mind of each man is the man himself.
You should eat to live; not live to eat.
Victory is by nature haughty and insolent.
An unjust peace is better than a just war.
Walnuts and pears you plant for your heirs.
There is no place more delightful than home.
Dare to give true advice with all frankness.
I criticize by creation—not by finding fault.
Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.
A happy life consists in tranquillity of mind.
No man can give you wiser advice than yourself.
A room without books is as a body without a soul.
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
Man is never less at leisure than when at leisure.
The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.
There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.
Where is there dignity unless there is also honesty?
Speakers are most vehement when their cause is weak.
When fortune is fickle, the faithful friend is found.
Grief is not in the nature of things, but an opinion.
The existence of virtue depends entirely upon its use.
Many wish not so much to be virtuous, as to seem to be.
There is no fortress so strong that money cannot take it.
The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.
Philosophy, rightly defined, is simply the love of wisdom.
No man is so old as to think he cannot live one more year.
We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free.
The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.
Courage is that virtue which champions the cause of right.
A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.
Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.
The eyes, like sentinels, hold the highest place in the body.
One day well spent is to be preferred to an eternity of error.
What is fitting is honorable, and what is honorable is fitting.
No man should act as to make a gain off the ignorance of others.
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
Men are like wines, age souring the bad, and bettering the good.
To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die.
Things perfected by nature are better than those finished by art.
A man only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
To stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.
![The most fruitful of all the arts [is] the science of living well. - Cicero quote.](/img/q/18/10418A-the-most-fruitful-of-all-the-arts-is-science-living-cicero.png)
The most fruitful of all the arts [is] the science of living well.
Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.
Philosophy, if rightly defined, is nothing but the love of wisdom.
The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.
Whatever befalls in accordance with nature should be accounted good.
There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow.
The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.
The greatest incitement to crime is the hope of escaping punishment.
There never was a great soul that did not have some divine inspiration.
Would that I could discover truth as easily as I can uncover falsehood.
Where pleasure prevails, all the greatest virtues will lose their power.
The more peculiarly his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.
Man does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.
In prosperity, let us take great care to avoid pride, scorn, and arrogance.
Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.
The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.
I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh whenever he sees another soothsayer.
Let us not go over the old ground, let us rather prepare for what is to come.
It is hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.
Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.
Action is the language of the body and should harmonize with the spirit within.
He removes the greatest ornament of friendship, who takes away from it respect.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.
The more virtuous any man is, the less easily does he suspect others to be vicious.
It is difficult to set bounds to the price unless you first set bounds to the wish.
Nature has granted the use of life like a loan, without fixing any day for repayment.
Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a parent than his children?
Time destroys the speculations of man and omen, but it confirms the judgment of nature.
It is a truth but too well known, that rashness attends youth, as prudence does old age.
We are all excited by the love of praise, and it is the noblest spirits that feel it most.
Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.
It is not only arrogant, but profligate, for a man to disregard the world's opinion of himself.
I follow nature as the surest guide, and resign myself, with implicit obedience, to her sacred ordinances.
For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.
No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?
When you wish to construct be brief. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.
The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds, by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully.
History is . . . the witness of times, the torch of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.
Intelligence, and reflection, and judgment, reside in old men, and if there had been none of them, no states could exist at all.
Wise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; and beasts by nature.
I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
I can think of nothing more agreeable to the brain and the ear than a speech adorned and embellished with wise thoughts and fine language.
The precept, 'Know yourself,' was not solely intended to obviate the pride of mankind; but likewise that we might understand our own worth.
Avarice 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?
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.
A careful physician, before he attempts to administer a remedy to his patient, must investigate not only the malady of the man he wishes to cure, but also his habits when in health, and his physical constitution.
Diligence, as it avails in all things, is also of the utmost moment in pleading causes. Diligence is to be particularly cultivated by us; it is to be constantly exerted, it is capable of effecting almost everything.
Never can custom conquer nature, for she is ever unconquered. This law then, was not written, but born. It is a law which we have not learned, received from others or read, but which we have derived, absorbed and copied from nature itself.
