Cicero Quotes

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.'

Res publica res est populi

A republic is the people's property

But if this man alone is removed from this piratical crew, we may appear, perhaps, for a short time relieved from fear and anxiety, but the danger will settle down and lie hid in the veins and bowels of the republic. As it often happens that men afflicted with a severe disease, when they are tortured with heat and fever, if they drink cold water, seem at first to be relieved, but afterwards stiffer more and more severely; so this disease which is in the republic, if relieved by the punishment of this man, will only get worse and worse, as the rest will be still alive.

Time obliterates the fictions of opinion and confirms the decisions of nature.

Post mortem quidem sensus aut optandus aut nullus est. Sed hoc meditatum ab adulescentia debet esse mortem ut neglegamus, sine qua meditatione tranquillo animo esse nemo potest. Moriendum enim certe est, et incertum an hoc ipso die. Mortem igitur omnibus horis impendentem timens qui poterit animo consistere?

What! You would convict me from my own words, and bring against me what I had said or written elsewhere. You may act in that manner with those who dispute by established rules. We live from hand to mouth, and say anything that strikes our mind with probability, so that we are the only people who are really at liberty."

for my own part I cannot cordially approve, I merely tolerate, a philosopher who talks of setting bounds to the desires. Is it possible for desire to be kept within bounds? It ought to be destroyed, uprooted altogether.

Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.

It is the function of justice not to do wrong to one's fellow-men; of considerateness , not to wound their feelings; and in this the essence of propriety is best seen.

atque illi artifices corporis simulacra ignotis nota faciebant; quae uel si nulla, nihilo sint tamen obscuriores clari uiri.

Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, deerit nihil.

It is not merriment and wantonness, nor laughter or jesting, the comrade of frivolity, that make men happy; those are happy, often in sadness, whose wills are strong and true.

Αν έχεις ένα κήπο και μια βιβλιοθήκη, έχεις όλα όσα σου χρειάζονται.

Non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici.

El pasado es también el presente y el futuro. La nación que olvida está pérdida.