The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Thrift is of great revenue.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

To know the laws is not to memorize their letter but to grasp their full force and meaning.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

To live is to think.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

To some extent I liken slavery to death.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

True nobility is exempt from fear.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

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.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

We forget our pleasures, we remember our sufferings.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.
Marcus Tullius Cicero