Cicero

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

While there's life, there's hope.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC–December 7, 43 BC) (also known by the anglicized name Tully, in and after the Middle Ages) was an orator and statesman of Ancient Rome. The standard English pronunciation of his name is [ˈsɪsərəʊ], though in classical Latin it was [ˈkikero]).

Quotes

• For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.
  • De Legibus (On the Laws), Book I, Chapter XV (translation by C.D. Yonge)

• True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.
  • As quoted in Great Catches; or, Grand Matches (1861) by Eleanor Frances Blakiston, p. 82

In Catilinam I - Against Catilina, Speech One (63 B.C)

• Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?
  • To what length will you abuse our patience, Catiline?
    Variant translation: How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?

• O tempora, o mores!
  • O, the times, O, the customs!

M. Tulli Ciceronis Orator Ad M. Brutum (46 B.C.)

• Prima enim sequentem honestum est in secundis tertiisque consistere. (3)
  • If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.
  • Variant translation: If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.

• Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur? (120)
  • Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?
  • Variant translation: To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child.

De Officiis - On Duties (44 B.C.)

• Summum ius, summa iniuria
  • Law applied to its extreme is the greatest injustice
  • Book I, section 10, 33.

• Non nobis solum nati sumus.
  • We are not born for ourselves alone
  • Book I, section 22.

• Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi, unum per disceptationem, alterum per vim, cumque illud proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum, confugiendum est ad posterius, si uti non licet superiore.
  • While there are two ways of contending, one by discussion, the other by force, the former belonging properly to man, the latter to beasts, recourse must be had to the latter if there be no opportunity for employing the former.
  • Book I, section 34. Translation by Andrew P. Peabody.

• In anger nothing right nor judicious can be done.
  • Book I, section 37.

• For of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred man than agriculture.
  • Book 1, section 42. Translation by Cyrus R. Edmonds (1873), p. 73.

• Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi.
  • Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praise, ye laurels.
  • Book I, section 77.

• Ludo autem et ioco uti illo quidem licet, sed sicut somno et quietibus ceteris tum, cum gravibus seriisque rebus satis fecerimus.
  • We may, indeed, indulge in sport and jest, but in the same way as we enjoy sleep or other relaxations, and only when we have satisfied the claims of our earnest, serious task.
  • Book I, section 103.

• He is never less at leisure than when at leisure.
  • Book III, section 1, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Then never less alone than when alone", Samuel Rogers, Human Life.

De Amicitia - On Friendship (44 B.C.)

• A friend is, as it were, a second self.

• The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.

• Friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

Philippic (44 B.C.)

• Hannibal ad portas
  • Hannibal at the gates: a cynical expression made when Cicero was forced by Antony to attend a Senate meeting which Cicero thought was of no major importance.

• That, Senators, is what a favour from gangs amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him!
  • From the Second Philippic Against Antony.

Various orations and works

• Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut aliquid dicere possint argutius.
  • Indeed rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly.
  • Brutus, 42.

• Genius is fostered by energy.
  • Pro Coelio (Ch. xix, sec. 45).

• Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.
  • No one dances sober, unless he is insane.
  • Pro Murena (Ch. vi, sec. 13).
  • Note that this is frequently misquoted as, "No sane man will dance."

• Being and appearing grateful is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
  • Pro Plancio (54 B.C).

• Ægroto, dum anima est, spes est
  • While the sick man has life, there is hope.
  • Epistolarum ad Atticum (Epistle To Atticus), Book ix, 10, 4
  • Also reported as: "While there's life, there's hope." or "Where there's life, there's hope."
  • Possibly based on Theocritus (3rd century BC): "While there's life there’s hope, and only the dead have none."
    • Idyll 4, line 42; tr. A. S. F. Gow, Theocritus ([1950] 1952) vol. 1, p. 37.
    • Variant translation: "For the living there is hope, but for the dead there is none".

• Nec vero [...] superstitione tollenda religio tollitur.
  • We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition.
  • De divinatione (Book I, chapter LXXII, sec. 148).

• Sed nescio quo modo nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum
  • There is nothing so ridiculous that some philosopher has not said it.
  • De Divinatione (Book II, chapter LVIII, sec 119).

• Non enim omnis error stultitia est dicenda.
  • We must not say that every mistake is a foolish one.
  • De divinatione ii, 43, as cited in Cicero: a sketch of his life and works, by Hannis Taylor, Mary Lillie Taylor Hunt, second edition (1916), p. 481

• Thus in the beginning the world was so made that certain signs come before certain events.
  • De Divinatione, i, 118, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Often do the spirits / Of great events stride on before the events, / And in to-day already walks to-morrow", Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Death of Wallenstein, Act v, scene 1.

• Let the punishment match the offense.
  • De Legibus.

• Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto.
  • Let the welfare of the people be the ultimate law.
  • De Legibus.

• Suum cuique.
  • To each his own.
  • De Legibus I / De Natura Deorum III, 38.

• Nervos belli, pecuniam.
  • Endless money forms the sinews of war.
  • Philippics.

• Inter arma enim silent leges
  • Law stands mute in the midst of arms.
  • Pro Milone
    Variant translation: In a time of war, the law falls silent.

• History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.
  • Pro Publio Sestio.

• The freedom of poetic license.
  • Pro Publio Sestio.

• Quam cum suavissima et maxima voce legisset, admirantibus omnibus "quanto" inquit "magis miraremini, si audissetis ipsum!"
  • He spoke with a charming full voice, and when everyone was applauding, "how much", he asked, "would you have applauded if you had heard the original?"
  • De Oratorio, book 3, chapter 56.
  • Cicero was telling the story of Æschines' return to Rhodes, at which he was requested to deliver Demosthenes' defence of Ctesiphon.

• For as lack of adornment is said to become some women, so this subtle oration, though without embellishment, gives delight.
  • De Oratore, 78, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Loveliness / Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, / But is when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most", James Thomson, The Seasons, "Autumn", Line 204.

• On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.
  • The Extremes of Good and Evil as translated by H. Rackham (1914)
  • Is commonly used in its original classical Latin form as "Lorem ipsum", or placeholder text for tests and demonstrations in publishing.

• True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.
  • De Re Publica, Book 3, Chapter 22.

• A war is never undertaken by the ideal State, except in defense of its honor or its safety.
  • De Re Publica, Book 3, Chapter 23.

• Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.
  • Paulus, L, 17.

• Can you also, Lucullus, affirm that there is any power united with wisdom and prudence which has made, or, to use your own expression, manufactured man? What sort of a manufacture is that? Where is it exercised? when? why? how?
  • Academica II (Lucullus) XXVII, 87.

• For with what eyes of the mind was your Plato able to see that workhouse of such stupendous toil, in which he makes the world to be modelled and built by God? What materials, what bars, what machines, what servants, were employed in so vast a work? How could the air, fire, water, and earth, pay obedience and submit to the will of the architect? From whence arose those five forms, of which the rest were composed, so aptly contributing to frame the mind and produce the senses? It is tedious to go through all, as they are of such a sort that they look more like things to be desired than to be discovered.
  • De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) I, 18.9.

• Come now: Do we really think that the gods are everywhere called by the same names by which they are addressed by us? But the gods have as many names as there are languages among humans. For it is not with the gods as with you: you are Velleius wherever you go, but Vulcan is not Vulcan in Italy and in Africa and in Spain.
  • De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), Book I, Chapter 30.

• Omnium Rerum Principia Parva Sunt."
  • The beginnings of all things are small.
  • Variant translation: Everything has a small beginning.
  • "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" Book V, Chapter 58

• Laudandum adulescentem, ornandum, tollendum.
  • The young man should be praised, honored, and made immortal.
  • Ad Familiares 11.20.1. The reference is to Octavian, with tollendum carrying the implication of the youth's being slain and thus "made immortal".

• Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, nihil deerit.
  • If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
  • Ad Familiares IX, 4, to Varro.

• Civis Romanus sum.
  • I am a Roman citizen.
  • Against Verres (In Verrem), part 2, book 5, section 57; reported in Cicero, The Verrine Orations, trans. L. H. G. Greenwood (1935), vol. 2, p. 629.

• As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age; first, it withdraws us from active accomplishments; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.
  • De Senectute (Of Old Age), book 5, section 15; reported in Herbert N. Couch, Cicero on the Art of Growing Old (1959), p. 21.

• Equidem ad paceni hortari non desino; quae vel iniusta utilior est quam iustissimum bellum cum civibus.
  • I never cease urging peace, which, however unfair, is better than the justest war in the world.
  • Variant translation: An unjust peace is better than a just war.
  • Epistulae ad Atticum (Letters to Atticus) Book 7, Letter 14

Disputed

• A room without books is like a body without a soul.
  • Attributed to Cicero in Ekwall, 2002, p. 57 (as quoted by Cathy Williams, 2008, in Effect of independent reading on fourth graders' vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, p. 13)

Misattributed

• The following two 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.
  • A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?
    • Taylor Caldwell in her novel based on the life of Cicero, A Pillar of Iron (1965), p. 451
  • Antonius heartily agreed with him [sc. Cicero] that the budget should be balanced, that the Treasury should be refilled, that the public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of the generals should be tempered and controlled, that assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, that the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence, and that prudence and frugality should be put into practice as soon as possible.
    • Taylor Caldwell in her novel based on the life of Cicero, A Pillar of Iron (1965), p. 483 of the 1965 edition published by Doubleday (Garden City, NY).

• Study carefully, the character of the one you recommend, lest their misconduct bring you shame.
  • from Horace, Epistles I.xviii.76.

• "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.'"
  • The quote is not from Cicero's actual writing, but from a speech entitled Cicero's Prognosis delivered by Justice Millard Caldwell of the Florida Supreme Court to the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. see http://www.aapsonline.org/brochures/cicero.htm

External links

• Works of Cicero at the Latin Library
• Links to Cicero resources