1,226 Quotes by Marcus Tullius Cicero

The following passage is one of those cited by Copernicus himself in his preface to De Revolutionibus: "The Syracusan Hicetas, as Theophrastus asserts, holds the view that the heaven, sun, moon, stars, and in short all of the things on high are stationary, and that nothing in the world is in motion except the earth, which by revolving and twisting round its axis with extreme velocity produces all the same results as would be produced if the earth were stationary and the heaven in motion. . . ."

Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.

Superstition is an unreasoning fear of God.

There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

History is indeed the witness of the times, the light of truth.

Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all things human and divine with mutual good-will and affection; and I doubt whether anything better than this, wisdom alone excepted, has been given to man.

In everything, satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.

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.

No obligation to do the impossible is binding.