Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

• A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Moving, Tyrants, World Government

  Speaking to the Roman Senate, as recorded by Sallust in The Catiline War (c. 40 b.c.). This quotation is a favorite of CIA counterintelligence officers.

  741 Copy quote

• Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Crush, Mistake, Believe

  600 Copy quote

• Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Politician, Born

  407 Copy quote

• 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.'

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Mean, Loss, Rome

  514 Copy quote

• Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Liars, Government, Political

  165 Copy quote

• Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Mistake, Failure, Philosophical

  161 Copy quote

• The Jews belong to a dark and repulsive force. One knows how numerous this clique is, how they stick together and what power they exercise through their unions. They are a nation of rascals and deceivers.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Exercise, Dark, Together

  244 Copy quote

• More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Opportunity, Decision, Thieves

  61 Copy quote

• The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Rome, Land, Political

  104 Copy quote

• What society does to its children, so will its children do to society.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Children, Doe

  53 Copy quote

• When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Powerful, Men, Honorable Man

  195 Copy quote

• If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Inspirational, Educational, Book

  To Varro, in "Ad Familiares" IX, 4,

  196 Copy quote

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

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Truth, Men, Firsts

  26 Copy quote

• To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Children, Ignorance, Political

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1962). “Brutus”, Loeb Classical Library

  148 Copy quote

• Non nobis solum nati sumus. (Not for ourselves alone are we born.)

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Helping Others, Born

  27 Copy quote

• A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within....for the traitor appears not to be a traitor...he rots the soul of a nation...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Soul, Ambitious, Body

  294 Copy quote

• We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  224 Copy quote

• It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Enough, Acquire

  218 Copy quote

• Within the character of the citizen, lies the welfare of the nation.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Lying, Character, Challenges

  34 Copy quote

• To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Gratitude, Acceptance, Simplicity

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Cicero (Illustrated)”, p.2333, Delphi Classics

  80 Copy quote

• It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Quality, Peculiar, Fool

  "Tusculanarum Disputationum". Book by Cicero,

  268 Copy quote

• The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Love, Life, Family

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1975). “De officiis”, Loeb Classical Library

  108 Copy quote

• 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?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Dog, Stupid, Boys

  222 Copy quote

• The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Inspirational, Wise, Wisdom

  111 Copy quote

• Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Thank You, Time, Children

  214 Copy quote

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