Quotes from Marcus Tullius Cicero

Our span of life is brief, but is long enough for us to live well and honestly.

There is no life without friendship

The life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.

I know not any season of life that is past more agreeably than virtuous old age.

You might as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life: for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.

Nor do I regret that I have lived, since I have so lived that I think I was not born in vain, and I quit life as if it were an inn, not a home.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

Thrift is of great revenue.

Cannot people realize how large an income is thrift?

There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften. [Lat., Nullus dolor est quem non longinquitas temporis minuat ac molliat.]

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long. [Lat., Mature fieri senem, si diu velis esses senex.]

Time obliterates the fictions of opinion and confirms the decisions of nature.

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

Let our friends perish, provided that our enemies fall at the same time.

Mental stains can not be removed by time, nor washed away by any waters. [Lat., Animi labes nec diuturnitate vanescere nec omnibus ullis elui potest.]

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?

For my own part, I had rather be old only a short time than be old before I really am so.

No grief is so acute but time ameliorates it.

Old age, especially an honored old age, has so great authority, that this is of more value than all the pleasures of youth.

The foolishness of old age does not characterize all who are old, but only the foolish.

A mental stain can neither be blotted out by the passage of time nor washed away by any waters.

The hours pass and the days and the months and the years, and the past time never returns.

We study history not to be clever in another time, but to be wise always.