Treatises on Friendship and Old Age Quotes

“The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Senectute, De Amicitia

“What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself? Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy?”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“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.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle—friendship can only exist between good men.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“We must stand up against old age and make up for its drawbacks by taking pains. We must fight it as we should an illness. We must look after our health, use moderate exercise, take just enough food and drink to recruit, but not to overload, our strength. Nor is it the body alone that must be supported, but the intellect and soul much more.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy?”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“We mean then by the "good" those whose actions and lives leave no question as to their honour, purity, equity, and liberality; who are free from greed, lust, and violence; and who have the courage of their convictions.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“they follow nature as the most perfect guide to a good life. Now”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“Now, what is the quality to look out for as a warrant for the stability and permanence of friendship? It is loyalty. Nothing that lacks this can be stable. We should also in making our selection look out for simplicity, a social disposition, and a sympathetic nature, moved by what moves us. These all contribute to maintain loyalty. You can never trust a character which is intricate and tortuous. Nor, indeed, is it possible for one to be trustworthy and firm who is unsympathetic by nature and unmoved by what affects ourselves. We may add, that he must neither take pleasure in bringing accusations against us himself, nor believe them when they are brought. All these contribute to form that constancy which I have been endeavouring to describe. And the result is, what I started by saying, that friendship is only possible between good men.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“the man to open his ears widest to flatterers is he who first flatters himself and is fondest of himself.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“Ey yüksek bilgelik! Dostluğu yaşamdan kaldırmak isteyenler, güneşi dünyadan ayıranlara benzerler; ölmez tanrılar insanlara dostluktan daha iyi, daha tatlı bir şey vermedi...
...Ruhta eylem olmazsa, insanla hayvan arasında demiyorum, ama insanla ağaç kütüğü, kaya ya da bu gibi bir eşya arasında ne ayrım kalır? Çünkü kendisinin sert, hem de demir gibi sert olmasını isteyenlerin sözlerini dinlemeyen erdem, aslında bir çok işte olduğu gibi, özellikle dostlukta yumuşaktır ve işlenebilir; öyle ki, dostun mutlu günlerinde sanki genişler, kara günlerinde sıkışır. Bu yüzden dost için duyulacak kaygı, dostluğu yaşamdan kaldıracak denli büyük değildir. Aynı biçimde kimi sıkıntı ve üzüntüler doğurabilir diye erdemden vazgeçilecek de değildir.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age