Quotes from Cicero

I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war.

Omnia mea mecum porto.

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 antiquities.

Kindness is stronger than fear.

Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things." — Cicero

The welfare of the people is the highest law

To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic.

Books: our unfailing companions

The mind becomes accustomed to things by the habitual sight of them, and neither wonders nor inquires about the reasons for things it sees all the time.

Vivere est Cogitare

There is, I assure you, a medical art for the soul. It is philosophy, whose aid need not be sought, as in bodily diseases, from outside ourselves. We must endeavor with all our resources and all our strength to become capable of doctoring ourselves.

Thus nature has no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on some support; and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate friendship.

Historia magistra vitae est

I would rather be wrong, by God, with Plato than be correct with those men.

The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intention.

What is sweeter than lettered ease?

Wisdom is the only thing which can banish sorrow from the breast .

I conclude, then, that the plea of having acted in the interests of a friend is not a valid excuse for a wrong action. . . . We may then lay down this rule of friendship--neither ask nor consent to do what is wrong. For the plea for friendship's sake is a discreditable one, and not to be admitted for a moment.

Freedom will bite back more fiercely when suspended than when she remains undisturbed.

Wohl niemand tanzt, wenn er nüchtern ist, er müsste denn den Verstand verloren haben.

The fruit of too much liberty is slavery.

I cannot find a faithful message-bearer, he wrote to his friend, the scholar Atticus. How few are they who are able to carry a rather weighty letter without lightening it by reading.

My dear Scipio and Laelius. Men, of course, who have no resources in themselves for securing a good and happy life find every age burdensome. But those who look for all happiness from within can never think anything bad which Nature makes inevitable.

Speaking Latin properly is indeed to be held in the highest regard – not just because of its own merits, but in fact because it has been neglected by the masses. For it is not so much Noble to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.