Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE) was a Roman statesman, orator, lawyer, and philosopher. He was a member of the Roman Senate, and a friend and follower of General Pompey the Great, who was Julius Caesar’s nemesis.

Cicero was also one of the most prolific and versatile of Latin orators and authors. He founded a model for Latin prose; his surviving works include speeches, treatises on rhetoric, philosophical works, and letters. Many of his rhetorical devices are still used by public speakers today.

Born in Arpinum (now Arpino,) central Italy, Cicero was educated in Rome and learned rhetoric and oratory in Athens and Rhodes. He worked as a defense lawyer at first and was then elected to serve in the Roman Senate together with Julius Caesar.

Cicero foresaw that Rome was in its final years, threatened by civil wars, and by the régime of Julius Caesar, and the triumvirates that succeeded him. Cicero tried to bolster the Roman Republic by subduing an uprising by Senator Catiline. As a political counsel, Cicero put the conspirators to death at once without giving them the right to a fair trial because he believed that the Republic was in danger. This move earned him many political enemies.

Later, Cicero was left out of the plot to kill Julius Caesar. However, when Cicero defended that murder in the interests of the Republic, he was forced into retirement from public life.

Cicero went on exile and wrote several philosophical works. He was known for his eloquence and incisive written dialogues—notably De Legibus (On the Laws, c.52–43 BCE,) Consolatio (On Grief and Consolation, 45 BCE,) Laelius de Amicitia (Laelius on Friendship, 44 BCE,) De Officiis (On Duties, 44 BCE) and De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods, 45 BCE.)

In the Philippics (43 BCE,) Cicero attacked Mark Antony, who, later on, had Cicero hunted down and beheaded. When Cicero’s head was taken back to Mark Antony, his wife Fulvia pulled out Cicero’s tongue and stabbed it with her golden hairpins in vengeance against Cicero’s power of speech.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Cicero

Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?
—Cicero
Topics: Dignity

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
—Cicero
Topics: Literature, Reading, Books

No grief is so acute but that time ameliorates it.
—Cicero
Topics: Grief

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.
—Cicero
Topics: History

Any man may make a mistake, but none but a fool will continue in it.
—Cicero
Topics: Mistake

When I consider the wonderful activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the future; when I behold such a number of arts and sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries thence arising, I believe and am firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot but be immortal.
—Cicero
Topics: Immortality

I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know.
—Cicero
Topics: Ignorance

The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.
—Cicero

I add this, that rational ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
—Cicero
Topics: Virtue, Ability, Education

Nothing contributes to the entertainment of the reader more, than the change of times and the vicissitudes of fortune.
—Cicero
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing

Man’s best support is a very dear friend.
—Cicero
Topics: Friendship

Diligence, as it avails in all things, is also of the utmost moment in pleading causes. Diligence is to be particularly cultivated by us; it is to be constantly exerted, it is capable of effecting almost everything.
—Cicero
Topics: Perseverance

Ability without honor is useless.
—Cicero
Topics: One liners, Ability, Honor

We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.
—Cicero
Topics: Community

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.
—Cicero

The sinews of war, a limitless supply of money.
—Cicero
Topics: War

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?
—Cicero
Topics: Greed, Age, Aging

Superstition is an unreasoning fear of God.
—Cicero
Topics: Superstition

Nothing so cements and holds together all the parts of a society as faith or credit, which can never be kept up unless men are under some force or necessity of honestly paying what they owe to one another.
—Cicero
Topics: Money

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.
—Cicero
Topics: Speakers, Speaking

It is not the place that maketh the person, but the person that maketh the place honorable.
—Cicero
Topics: Man

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
—Cicero
Topics: Children, Past

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
—Cicero

Old age, especially an honored old age, has so great authority that this is of more value than all the pleasures of youth.
—Cicero
Topics: Old Age, Age

The injuries that befall us unexpectedly are less severe than those which are deliberately anticipated.
—Cicero
Topics: Pain

A perverse temper, and a discontented, fretful disposition, wherever they prevail, render any state of life unhappy.
—Cicero
Topics: Unhappiness, Discontent

That which is called dotage, is not the weak point of all old men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity and weakness.
—Cicero
Topics: Age

Great is the power, great is the authority of a senate that is unanimous in its opinions.
—Cicero

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.
—Cicero
Topics: Authority

A friend is, as it were, a second self.
—Cicero
Topics: Friendship, Friends and Friendship

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