Cícero

Grief is not in the nature of things, but in opinion.

The spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by your finger.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

Promises are not to be kept, if the keeping of them would prove harmful to those to whom you have made them.

Persistence in one opinion has never been considered a merit in political leaders.

A tear dries quickly, especially when it is shed for the troubles of others.

The name of peace is sweet and the thing itself good, but between peace and slavery there is the greatest difference.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

No one is so old that he does not think he could live another year.

The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.

Every stage of human life, except the last, is marked out by certain and defined limits; old age alone has no precise and determinate boundary.

The man who commands efficiently must have obeyed others in the past, and the man who obeys dutifully is worthy of being some day a commander.

There is a difference between justice and consideration in one’s relations to one’s fellow men. It is the function of justice not to do wrong to one’s fellow men; of considerateness, not to wound their feelings.

Should this my firm persuasion of the soul’s immortality prove to be a mere delusion, it is at least a pleasing delusion, and I will cherish it to my latest breath.

Never can custom conquer nature, for she is ever unconquered.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

Whatever befalls in accordance with nature should be accounted good.

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

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

What is dignity without honesty?

We should measure affection, not like youngsters by the ardor of its passion, but by its strength and constancy.

There has never been a poet or orator who thought another better than himself.

The more peculiarly his own a man’s character is, the better it fits him.

Justice extorts no reward, no kind of price; she is sought, therefore, for her own sake.

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.”

“Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.”

It is difficult to set bounds to the price unless you first set bounds to the wish.

Avarice, in old age, is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey’s end?

It is the character of a brave and resolute man not to be ruffled by adversity and not to desert his post.

Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.

A perverse temper and fretful disposition will make any state of life whatsoever unhappy.

My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.

There is no being of any race who, if he finds the proper guide, cannot attain to virtue.

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

The more laws, the less justice.