Top 1054 Quotes & Sayings by Marcus Tullius Cicero - Page 4

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.

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.

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?

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum. (Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.)

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

They condemn what they do not understand.

There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

Nothing is so secure as that money will not defeat it.

We should be careful that our benevolence does not exceed our means.

They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever.

A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within....for the traitor appears not to be a traitor...he rots the soul of a nation...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

Morals today are corrupted by our worship of riches.

Through doubt we arrive at the truth.

They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race.

A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?

As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age; first, it withdraws us from active accomplishments; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.

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.

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

People don't know the value of what they have until it is gone: Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.... Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude. Don't wait till freedom is gone before you enjoy, value, support, protect and make the most of it!

No one dances sober, unless he is insane.

By doubting we come at truth.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

What society does to its children, so will its children do to society.

Let the welfare of the people be the ultimate law.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.

There is no one who can give you wiser advice than you can give yourself: you will never make a slip, if you listen to your own heart.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.

The first duty of man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.

More laws, less justice.

I have always been of the opinion that unpopularity earned by doing what is right is not unpopularity at all, but glory.

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

Life without learning is death.

A man would have no pleasures in discovering all the beauties of the universe, even in heaven itself, unless he had a partner to whom he might communicate his joys.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.

To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches.

It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.

Man must suffer to be wise.

In this statement, my Scipio, I build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. And by this definition it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot and indeed this is the most odious of all tyrannies, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and mask of the people.

Though liberty is established by law, we must be vigilant, for liberty to enslave us is always present under that very liberty. Our Constitution speaks of the "general welfare of the people." Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by lusting tyrants to make us bondsmen.

The Jews belong to a dark and repulsive force. One knows how numerous this clique is, how they stick together and what power they exercise through their unions. They are a nation of rascals and deceivers.

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

Non nobis solum nati sumus. (Not for ourselves alone are we born.)

The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.

Man was born for two things--thinking and acting.

There are two ways to resolve conflicts, through violence or through negotiation. Violence is for wild beasts, negotiation is for human beings.

If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words.

What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.

Within the character of the citizen, lies the welfare of the nation.

We should be as careful of our words as of our actions.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

If our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

Please go on, make your threats. I don't like to submit to mere implication.

Dum Spiro, spero- As long as I breathe, I hope.

The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men.

A s laws multiply, injustice increases.

Those who do not know history will forever remain children

When time and need require, we should resist with all our might, and prefer death to slavery and disgrace.