Marcus Tullius Cicero

Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.

Here is a man whose life and actions the world has already condemned - yet whose enormous fortune...has already brought him acquittal!

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.

It might be pardonable to refuse to defend some men, but to defend them negligently is nothing short of criminal.

Law is the highest reason implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.

They are eloquent who can speak low things acutely, and of great things with dignity, and of moderate things with temper.

Friendship is the only point in human affairs concerning the benefit of which all, with one voice, agree.

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.

No obligation to do the impossible is binding.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

Leisure consists in all those virtuous activities by which a man grows morally, intellectually, and spiritually. It is that which makes a life worth living.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Nature has lent us life at interest, like money, and has fixed no day for its payment.

Persistence in a single view has never been regarded as a merit in political leaders.

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

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

Friendship embraces innumerable ends; turn where you will it is ever at your side; no barrier shuts it out; it is never untimely and never in the way.