Cicero Quotes

107 BCE – 44 BCE

Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC), infrequently known by the anglicized name Tully in the Middle Ages and after, was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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

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

No power on earth, if it labours beneath the burden of fear, can possibly be strong enough to survive.

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.

Historia magistra vitae est

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.

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.

Calamus fortior gladio.

I would rather be wrong, by God, with Plato than be correct with those men.

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.

The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intention.

Let arms give place to the robe, and the laurel of the warriors yield to the tongue of the orator.

Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.

What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?

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.