Tag: Cicero

O tempora, o mores.

(O, the times! O, the morals!)

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Let the punishment match the offense.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Constant practice devoted to one subject often prevails over both ability and skill.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The beginnings of all things are small.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens; one thing to–day and another to–morrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must forever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author,  its promulgator, its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. For his crime he must endure the severest penalties hereafter, even if he avoid the usual misfortunes of the present life.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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?

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Injustice often arises also through chicanery, that is, through an over-subtle and even fraudulent construction of the law. This it is that gave rise to the now familiar saw, “More law, less justice.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

In a time of war, the law falls silent.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Almost no one dances sober, unless he is insane.

Marcus Tullius Cicero