Quotes from Marcus Tullius Cicero

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catalina, patientia nostra?

Those who lack within themselves the means for living a blessed and happy life will find any age painful. - How to grow old: ancient wisdom for the second half of life.

The essence of Ciceronian philosophy is a sense of wonder at the interconnectedness of human beings to one another and to the universe that encompasses them.

The good life is impossible without a good state; and there is no greater blessing than a well-ordered state.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

In communities and individuals alike, excessive freedom topples over into excessive slavery. Extreme freedom produces a tyrant, along with the extremely harsh and evil slavery that goes with him.

But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle—friendship can only exist between good men.

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.

n the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self......

Mea mihi conscientia pluris est quam omnium sermo

In all matters, before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made.

There is no doubt that a person who is called generous and open-handed has duty in mind, not gain. So likewise justice looks for no prize and no price; it is sought for itself, and is at once the cause and meaning of all the virtues.

Instead let Virtue herself, by her own unaided allurements, summon you to a glory that is genuine and real.

We are all servants of the laws in order to be free

Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus

Some people will say that memory fades away as the years pass. Of course it does if you don't exercise it or aren't very bright to begin with. -- How to grow old: ancient wisdom for the second half of life.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy?

For as I like a man in whom there is something of the old, so I like a man in whom there is something of the young; and he who follows this maxim, in body will possibly be an old man but he will never be an old man in mind.

For walk where we will, we tread upon some story.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

If you have a library in your garden, everything will be complete.

There is also a tradition about Socrates. He liked walking, it is recorded, until a late hour of the evening, and when someone asked him why he did this he said he was trying to work up an appetite for his dinner.