Top 500 Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “To reduce man to the duties of his own city, and to disengage him from duties to the members of other cities, is to break the universal society of the human race.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

202. “God’s law is ‘right reason.’ When perfectly understood it is called ‘wisdom.’ When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called ’justice.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

203. “In the master there is a servant, in the servant a master.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

205. “The multitude of fools is a protection to the wise.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

206. “A life of peace, purity and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

207. “If nature does not ratify law, then all the virtues may lose their sway.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

208. “Nothing is difficult in the eyes of a lover.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

209. “Please go on, make your threats. I don’t like to submit to mere implication.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

210. “There is no moment without some duty.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

211. “Nothing is so swift as calumny, nothing is more easily propagated, nothing more readily credited, nothing more widely circulated.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

212. “The absolute good is not a matter of opinion but of nature.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

213. “Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

214. “Long life is denied us; therefore let us do something to show that we have lived.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

215. “There is no quality I would rather have, and be thought to have, than gratitude. For it is not only the greatest virtue, but is the mother of all the rest.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

216. “As in the case of wines that improve with age, the oldest friendships ought to be the most delightful.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

217. “Nature herself has imprinted on the minds of all the idea of God.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

218. “For what I lack in experience I make up for in diligence.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

219. “Of this last kind of comparisons is that quoted from the elder Cato, who, when asked what was the most profitable thing to be done on an estate, replied, “To feed cattle well.” “What second best?” “To feed cattle moderately well.” “What third best?” “To feed cattle, though but poorly.” “What fourth best?” “To plough the land.” And when he who had made these inquiries asked, “What is to be said of making profit by usury?” Cato replied, “What is to be said of making profit by murder?”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

220. “Men resemble the gods in nothing so much as in doing good to their fellow creatures.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

221. “The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

222. “An innocent man, if accused, can be acquitted; a guilty man, unless accused, cannot be condemned. It is, however, more advantageous to absolve an innocent than not to prosecute a guilty man.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

223. “Neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

224. “For every man’s nature is concealed with many folds of disguise, and covered as it were with various veils. His brows, his eyes, and very often his countenance, are deceitful, and his speech is most commonly a lie.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

225. “To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

226. “Take from a man his reputation for probity, and the more shrewd and clever he is, the more hated and mistrusted he becomes.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

227. “Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

228. “Let us not go over the old ground but rather prepare for what is to come.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

229. “Reason should direct, and appetite obey.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

230. “In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

231. “I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

232. “There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

233. “Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

234. “Let war yield to peace, laurels to paeans.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

235. “If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

236. “All things tend to corrupt perverted minds.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

237. “There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

238. “Hunger is the best sauce.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

239. “We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

240. “Wisdom often exists under a shabby coat.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

241. “People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

242. “Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

243. “In men of the highest character and noblest genius there is to be found an insatiable desire for honor, command, power, and glory.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

244. “In anger nothing right nor judicious can be done.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

245. “Sweet is the memory of past troubles.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

246. “Advice 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.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

247. “This is our special duty, that if anyone specially needs our help, we should give him such help to the utmost of our power.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

248. “Politeness and an affable address are our best introduction.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

249. “Certain signs precede certain events.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

250. “If the truth were self-evident, eloquence would be unnecessary.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero