Cicero

Santorini, Greece - 2006

1. “A good deed in the wrong place is like an evil deed.”
2. "A room without books is like a body without a soul."
3. "A letter does not blush."
4. "All men have a feeling, that they would rather you told them a civil lie than give them a point blank refusal... If you make a promise, the thing is still uncertain, depends on a future day, and concerns but few people; but if you refuse you alienate people to a certainty and at once, and many people to."
5. “An unjust peace is better than a just war.”
6. “Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger.”
7. “Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.”
8. “By doubting we come at truth.”
9. “Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.”
10. “Every evil in the bud is easily crushed: as it grows older, it becomes stronger.”
11. “Excessive liberty leads both nations and individuals into excessive slavery.”
12. “For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate."”
13. “For the laws are dumb in the midst of arms.”
14. “[Freedom is] the power to live as you will. Who then lives as he wills?”’
15. ”Hatred is inveterate anger.”
16. “He is his own worst enemy.”
17. “I criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”
18. “If a man could mount to heaven and survey the mighty universe, his admiration of its beauties would be much diminished unless he had some one to share in his pleasure.”
19. ”If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
20. “If you pursue good with labour, the labour passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.”
21. “If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.”
22. “I have no regret at having lived, for I have so conducted my life that I do not feel that I was born to no purpose. I cheerfully quit from life as if it were an inn, not a home; for Nature has given us a hostelry in which to sojourn, not to abide.”
23. “In everything satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.”
24. "In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy."
25. “In honourable dealing you should consider what you intended, not what you said or thought.”
26. “In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.”
27. "I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war."
28. “I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.”
29. “I remind you, sir, that extreme patriotism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice no virtue.”
30. “I swear I would rather be wrong with Plato than see the truth with men like these.”
31. "It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment; in these qualities old age is usually not only not poorer, but is even richer."
32. “It was ordained at the beginning of the world that certain signs should prefigure certain events.”
33. “Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.”
34. ”Justice shines by its own light.”
35. “Laws are dumb in time of war.”
36. "Let the punishment match the offense."
37. ”Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.”
38. "Like associates with like."
39. "Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things."
40. ”Morals today are corrupted by our worship of riches.”
41. “My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.”
42. ”Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.”
43. ”Nature abhors annihilation.”
44. "Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself."
45. ”No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.”
46. ”No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.”
47. ”Nor has he spent his life badly who has passed it in privacy.”
48. ”No sensible man ever imputes inconsistency to another for changing his mind.”
49. ”Nothing quite new is perfect.”
50. “Nothing so absurd can be said, that some philosopher has not said it.”
51. “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.”
52. "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."
53. “Philosophy, rightly defined, is simply the love of wisdom.”
54. ”That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.”
55. “The beginnings of all things are small.”
56. ”The countenance is the portrait of the mind, the eyes are its informers.”
57. “The cultivation of the mind is a kind of food supplied for the soul of man.”
58. “The foundation of justice is good faith.”
59. “The foundations of justice are that on one shall suffer wrong; then, that the public good be promoted.”
60. “The good of the people is the chief law.”
61. “The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.”
62. “The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.”
63. “The life given us by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.”
64. ”The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”
65. “The mind of each man is the man himself.”
66. “The more laws, the less justice.”
67. ”The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.”
68. ”The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed.”
69. “There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it.”
70. ”The safety of the people shall be the highest law.”
71. “The spirit is the true self.”
72. “These studies are a spur to the young, a delight to the old; an ornament in prosperity, a consoling refuge in adversity; they are pleasure for us at home, and no burden abroad; they stay up with us at night, they accompany us when we travel, they are with us in our country visits.”
73. ”The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.”
74. "The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct."
75. “They condemn what they do not understand.”
76. “Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”
77. “To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul.”
78. “To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?”
79. ”To disregard what the world thinks of us is not only arrogant but utterly shameless.”
80. “To live is to think.”
81. “To live long, it is necessary to live slowly.”
82. “To think is to live.”
83. ”True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.”
84. ”Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.”
85. “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.”
86. ”We are slaves of the laws in order that we may be able to be free.”
87. "We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue."
88. ”We think a happy life consists in tranquillity of mind.”
89. “Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts. it is something celestial and divine."
90. “What is so beneficial to the people as liberty, which we see not only to be greedily sought after by men, but also by beasts, and to be preferred to all things.”
91. ”Whatever you do, do with all your might.”
92. "When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind."
93. “Whom they fear they hate”