All Quotes

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

"For as lack of adornment is said to become some women, so this subtle oration, though without embellishment, gives delight."

"The freedom of poetic license."

"Genius is fostered by energy."

"The following three quotes are sometimes wrongly attributed to Cicero. In fact, they come from a novel about Cicero by Taylor Caldwell, and are not found in any of Cicero's actual writings."

"Study carefully, the character of the one you recommend, lest their misconduct bring you shame."

"So live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts"

"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.'"

"Diem adimere aegritudinem hominibus."

"The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease."

"Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book."

"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."

"As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united in the same character, his authority should have great weight."

"For, when Cicero tells us that he had seen the entire Iliad written on skin of such a miniature size, that it could easily be rolled up inside a nut-shell, and Pliny asserts that Nero had a ring with a small glass in it, through which he watched the performance of the gladiators at a distance—could audacity go farther? Truly, when we are told that Mauritius could see from the promontory of Sicily over the entire sea to the coast of Africa, with an instrument called nauscopite, we must either think that all these witnesses lied, or that the ancients were more than slightly acquainted with optics and magnifying glasses. p. 240"

"Aristotle maintains that this gas, or astral emanation, escaping from inside the earth, is the sole sufficient cause, acting from within outwardly for the verification of every living being and plant upon the external crust. In answer to the skeptical negators of his century, Cicero, moved by a just wrath, exclaims : "And what can be more divine than the exhalations of the earth, which affect the human soul so as to enable her to predict the future ? And could the hand of time evaporate such a virtue?"... *(Book I, Section 18 De Divinatione – On Divination) Do modem experimentalists claim to be wiser than Cicero, and say that this eternal force has evaporated, and that the springs of prophecy are dry? p. 200"

"Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicharmus, Empedocles, Kebes, Euripides, Plato, Euclid, Philo, Boethius, Virgil, Marcus Cicero, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, Psellus, Synesius, Origen, and, finally, Aristotle himself, far 'from denying our immortality, support it most emphatically. p. 251"

"君子周而不比，小人比而不周。"

"If unwilling to seek for proof or receive information from mediaeval, hermetic philosophy, we may go still further back into antiquity, and select, out of the great body of philosophers of the pre-Christian ages, one who can least be accused of superstition and credulity—Cicero. Speaking of those whom he calls gods, and who are either human or atmospheric spirits, " We know," says the old orator, " that of all living beings man is the best formed, and, as the gods belong to this number, they must have a human form... Epicurus, for whom hidden things were as tangible as if he had touched them with his finger, teaches us that gods are not generally visible, but that they are intelligible; that they are not bodies having a certain solidity . . . but that we can recognize them by their passing images; that as there are atoms enough in the infinite space to produce such images, these are produced before us . . . and make us realize what are these happy, immortal beings." p. 280"

"If I could have known Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum l), I could have died contented."

"As for Cicero, when he had heard some of the verses [of Virgil's Eclogues], his piercing judgement immediately perceived that these were productions of uncommon vigor, and ordered the whole eclogue to be recited from the beginning. Having familiarized himself with its every nuance, he declared it "the second great hope of Rome" [Magnae spes altera Romae], as if he himself were the first hope of the Latin language and Maro the second. These words Virgil later inserted in the Aeneid [12.168]."

"Interestingly, Cicero saw the root of benevolence and charity in conscience, and in fact was the first scholar in history to use the word “conscience” (conscientia) in the moral sense we are familiar with. We can summarize his thought by stating that friendship is possible when two or more persons who have some common purposes in life systematically act towards each other with benevolence and charity (caritas, which is a non-erotic form of love), guided by conscience."

"I have also read again Cicero's philosophical works, and think, as I thought at twenty two, when I read him under the chestnuts at Trinity, that the De Finibus is the best, that then comes the De Natura Deorum, and that the Tusculan Disputations are the least valuable,—mere anointing for broken bones."

"But to confess the truth boldly (for once you have crossed over the barriers of impudence there is no more curb), his way of writing, and every other similar way, seems to me boring. For his prefaces, definitions, partitions, etymologies, consume the greater part of his work; what life and marrow there is, is smothered by his long-winded preparations. If I have spent an hour in reading him, which is a lot for me, and I remember what juice and substance I have derived, most of the time I find nothing but wind; for he has not yet come to the arguments that serve his purpose and the reasons that properly touch on the crux, which I am looking for."

"Quare non inmerito ab hominibus aetatis suae regnare in iudiciis dictus est, apud posteros vero id consecutus ut Cicero iam non hominis nomen sed eloquentiae habeatur. hunc igitur spectemus, hoc propositum nobis sit exemplum, ille se profecisse sciat cui Cicero valde placebit."

"... It was Seneca or it was Cicero, I don't know which, that said, "If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.""

"Cicero discusses justice as the second of the four cardinal virtues (wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance) whose presence constitutes moral goodness. Justice is the virtue that holds society together and allows us to pursue the common good for whose sake society exists. ... One interesting feature is his concern with in justice... The Stoic view that morality promotes the common good implies that we must try to restore the social relationship that has been violated."

"He that in his studies wholly applies himself to labour and exercise, and neglects meditation, loses his time, and he that only applies himself to meditation, and neglects labour and exercise, only wanders and loses himself."

"Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills"

"Man has three ways of acting wisely. First, on meditation; that is the noblest. Secondly, on imitation; that is the easiest. Thirdly, on experience; that is the bitterest."

"It is not truth that makes man great, but man that makes truth great."

"It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them."

"The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large."

"Follow the seasons of Ha, Ride in the state carriage of Yau, Wear the ceremonial cap of Chan, Let the music be the Shiu with its pantomimes."

"學而時習之、不亦說乎。有朋自遠方來、不亦樂乎。人不知而不慍、不亦君子乎。"

"弟子，入則孝，出則弟，謹而信，凡愛眾，而親仁。行有餘力，則以學文。"

"主忠信。毋友不如己者。過，則勿憚改。"

"道千乘之國，敬事而信，節用而愛人，使民以時。"

"君子食無求飽，居無求安，敏於事而慎於言，就有道而正焉，可謂好學也已。"

"不患人之不己知，患不知人也。"

"君子不重則不威，學則不固。主忠信。無友不如己者。過則勿憚改。"

"【第一章】子曰、爲政以德、譬如北辰、居其所、而眾星共之。"

"君子無所爭、必也射乎、揖譲而升下、而飲、其爭也君子。"

"殷因於夏禮，所損益，可知也；周因於殷禮，所損益，可知也。其或繼周者，雖百世，可知也。"

"里仁為美、擇不處仁、焉得知。"

"見賢思齊焉；見不賢而內自省也。"

"父在，觀其志；父殁，觀其行；三年无改於父之道，可謂孝矣。"

"君子欲訥於言而敏於行。"

"君子喻於義，小人喻於利。"

"I am not concerned that I have no place; I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known; I seek to be worthy to be known."

"事父母幾諫，見志不從，又敬不違，勞而不怨。"