Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

Cicero Quote: Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

What is permissible is not always honorable.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Paulus)

We forget our pleasures, we remember our sufferings.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Pro Murena: Speech in defense of Lucius Licinius Murena, 63 BCE)

True law is right reason in agreement with nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On the Commonwealth, 54 - 51 BCE)

There is nothing so ridiculous that some philosopher has not said it.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (De Divinatione, 44 BCE)

In anger nothing right nor judicious can be done.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On Duties, 44 BCE)

The spirit is the true self.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On the Republic, 51 BCE)

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust. 

Marcus Tullius Cicero (De Oratore - Book III)

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On Duties, 44 BCE)

No one dances sober, unless he is insane.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Pro Murena: Speech in defense of Lucius Licinius Murena, 63 BCE)

Friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On Friendship, 44 BCE)

As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off; who can control himself and obey his own principles.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods, 45 BCE)

If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (M. Tulli Ciceronis Orator Ad M. Brutum, 46 BCE)

Nothing is so difficult to believe that oratory cannot make it acceptable, nothing so rough and uncultured as not to gain brilliance and refinement from eloquence.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On Friendship, 44 BCE)

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (De Oratore - Book I)

It is improbable that the material substance which is the origin of all things was created by divine Providence. It has and has always had a force and nature of its own. 

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Pro Murena: Speech in defense of Lucius Licinius Murena, 63 BCE)

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Philippics, 43 - 44 BCE)

We are all motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is, the more he is inspired by glory.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Justice commands us to have mercy upon all men, to consult the interests of the whole human race, to give to every one his due.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On the Republic, 51 BCE)

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (De Lege Agraria)

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Philippics, 43 - 44 BCE)

History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods, 45 BCE)

Take from a man his reputation for probity, and the more shrewd and clever he is, the more hated and mistrusted he becomes.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On Duties, 44 BCE)

The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (On Duties, 44 BCE)

There is, I know not how, in minds a certain presage, as it were, of a future existence: this has the deepest root, and is most discoverable, in the greatest geniuses and most exulted souls.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations, 45 BCE)


Marcus Tullius Cicero Biography

Born: January 3, 106 BCE
Died: December 7, 43 BCE

Marcus Tullius Cicero, or also known simply as Cicero, was an Roman philosopher, orator and politician. He is widely considered to be one of Rome's greatest orators.

Notable Works

De Oratore or On the Orator (55 BCE)
De Re Publica or On the Republic (51 BCE)
De Finibus (45 BCE)
Hortensius (45 BCE)
On the Nature of the Gods (44 BCE)
On Friendship (44 BCE)
De Officiis or On Duties (44 BCE)
De Legibus or On The Laws