Quotes by Marcus Tullius Cicero

We must stand up against old age and make up for its drawbacks by taking pains. We must fight it as we should an illness. We must look after our health, use moderate exercise, take just enough food and drink to recruit, but not to overload, our strength. Nor is it the body alone that must be supported, but the intellect and soul much more.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.

Two distinctive traits especially identify beyond a doubt a strong and dominant character. One trait is contempt for external circumstances, when one is convinced that men ought to respect, to desire, and to pursue only what is moral and right, that men should be subject to nothing, not to another man, not to some disturbing passion, not to Fortune. The second trait, when your character has the disposition I outlined just now, is to perform the kind of services that are significant and most beneficial; but they should also be services that are a severe challenge, that are filled with ordeals, and that endanger not only your life but also the many comforts that make life attractive.Of these two traits, all the glory, magnificence, and the advantage, too, let us not forget, are in the second, while the drive and the discipline that make men great are in the former.

In time of war the laws are silent.

The sinews of war are infinite money.

Laws are silent in time of war.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.

Nature abhors annihilation.

It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.

Old age: the crown of life, our plays last act.

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 journeys end.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

Rashness belongs to youth prudence to old age.

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