Cicero Quotes

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza’s? Was his brain equal to Kepler’s or Newton’s? Was he grander in death – a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, About The Holy Bible

“Nemo est qui tibi sapientius suadere possit te ipso: numquam labere, si te audies.

(Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself: if you heed yourself, you'll never go wrong.)”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero , Selected Letters

“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, Imperium

“Neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language. ”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The reward of friendship is friendship itself.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, How to Be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship

“But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“For what is the life of a man, if it is not interwoven with the life of former generations by as sense of history. [Cicero, quoted by Goldsworthy in his Augustus]”
― Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: First Emperor of Rome

“Surely the greatest mercy granted us by Providence is our ignorance of the future. Imagine if we knew the outcome of our hopes and plans, or could see the manner in which we are doomed to die - how ruined our lives would be! Instead we live on dumbly from day to day as happily as animals. But all things must come to dust eventually. No human being, no system, no age is impervious to this law; everything beneath the stars will perish; the hardest rock will be worn away. Nothing endures but words.”
― Robert Harris, Lustrum

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus.

translation (non-literal):
O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher of virtues and expeller of vices! Just a single day lived well and according to your lessons is to be preferred to an eternity of errors.

— Cicero, As quoted in Ben Franklin’s Autobiography”
― Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

“atque illi artifices corporis simulacra ignotis nota faciebant; quae uel si nulla, nihilo sint tamen obscuriores clari uiri.”
― Cicero, Letters of Cicero

“If you have a library in your garden, everything will be complete.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Anger should be especially kept down in punishing, because he who comes to punishment in wrath will never hold that middle course which lies between the too much and the too little. It is also true that it would be desirable that they who hold the office of Judges should be like the laws, which approach punishment not in a spirit of anger but in one of equity.”
― Johannes Voet

“Ich stellte mir seine Gedanken als einen schnellen, schmalen Wasserstrom vor, der sich durch die Fugen eines gefliesten Bodens bewegte - erst vorwärts, dann nach links und rechts ausgreifend, an einem Punkt kurz innehaltend, in eine andere Richtung weiter vorstoßend, sich immer weiter ausbreitend und verzweigend und dabei in seiner schimmernden, flüssigen Bewegung all die kleinen Möglichkeiten, Kosequenzen und Wahrscheinlichkeiten bedenkend.”
― Robert Harris, Imperium

“Nam eloquentiam quae admirationem non habet nullam iudico”
― Marcus Tulius Cicero

“When I then turned toward the scriptures, they appeared to me to be quite unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully. For my inflated pride was repelled by their style, nor could the sharpness of my wit penetrate their inner meaning. Truly they were of a sort to aid the growth of little ones, but I scorned to be a little one and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as fully grown.”
― Saint Augustine

“If gratitude is the parent of all virtues (Cicero) and necessity is the mother of invention (Plato), could being being grateful in times of need help you be inventive enough to receive everything you want?⁣”
― Richie Norton

“Ama ne yazık ki tarihte hep aynı trajedi tekrarlanmaktadır, çünkü fikir adamları zamanı gelince, dava adamı olma sorumluluğunu üstlenmekte zorlanırlar ve pek nadir durumlarda harekete geçerler. Düşün dünyası zengin, yaratıcı insanlarda bu ikilem her zaman ortaya çıkar: Çünkü yaşadıkları dönemin saçmalıklarını en iyi görenler ve gözleyenler onlardır ve bir coşku anında, kendilerini büyük bir tutkuyla siyasi mücadelenin içine atarlar, ama öte yandan da zorbalığa zorbalıkla karşılık vermekte çekinir, tereddüt ederler. Duydukları sorumluluk onları şiddete başvurmaktan, kan dökmekten alıkoyar; o bir anlık tereddüt, saygılı geri duruş, şiddeti teşvik ederek onların elini kolunu bağlar ve tüm güçlerini yok eder.”
― Stefan Zweig, Decisive Moments in History

“Petrarch sometimes wrote letters to long-dead authors. He was also a dedicated hunter of classic manuscripts. Once, after discovering some previously unknown works of Cicero, he wrote Cicero the news.”
― David Markson, Reader’s Block

“He (Cicero) made Catiline and his conspiracy actually simple; the man himself had the courage to sit in front of him and listen, and at the end, it seemed as if he had exposed Catiline even to himself.”
― William Bolitho, Twelve Against the Gods

“The first sentence of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s that reached me still jolts me every time I run into it. “Meek young men,” he wrote in “The American Scholar,” “grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote those books…”
― Robert D. Richardson Jr., First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process

“Utinam tam facile vera invenire possim quam falsa convincere.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Natura Deorum

“a distinction has gradually sprung up between what is expedient and what is right. But the implication that something can be right without being expedient, or expedient without being right, is the most pernicious error that could possibly be introduced into human life.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Duties

“Kant’s conception of dignity is indebted to Cicero and the Roman conception of dignitas, according to which dignity is an elevated position or rank. The Roman dignitas is a complicated notion that has further connotations, e.g. worthiness, duties and privileges. Many of these are reflected in present-day usage, as when one speaks of a ‘dignitary’ or behaving with dignity. However, the additional connotations are not essential to dignitas.”
― Oliver Sensen

“The women of Republican times are silent. Rarely calling for comment in the history books, they are named on tombstones, flit in arrogant beauty through poetry, or appear even as monsters of iniquity in a court of law. Yet they themselves do not speak and they have left no literature of any sort of their own. In this book, however, Roman women live and love and hate anything but silently. (author's note To the Reader in 'A Roman Death'.)”
― Joan O'Hagan

“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?”
― Robert Harris, Dictator

“The wise are instructed by mathematics, average minds by science, the stupid by bad philosophy, and the brute by religion and mysticism. What was Cicero’s fate? He was executed by order of Mark Antony. Fulvia, Antony’s wife, spat on the great orator’s severed head and then, setting it on her knees, opened the mouth that had spoken so eloquently against her husband and made so many wondrous speeches. With a pin from her hair, she savagely pierced Cicero’s dead tongue. We won’t let the stupid silence us. Reason shall prevail. The Brazen Head still lives.”
― Thomas Stark, Holenmerism and Nullibism: The Two Faces of the Holographic Universe

“The Warden of Land and Sea", murmured Cicero, "I suppose we should be grateful he's left us the air”
― Robert Harris

“My philosophy
professor says the thing
Plato called math, Cicero
called music, the way my father
knew my name for 20 years
before I was born but
to this day must still be
reminded of my birthday.”
― Topaz Winters, So, Stranger