The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.
It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.
O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life.
What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.
We must not only obtain Wisdom: we must enjoy her.
When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men’s [children’s] minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.
Time obliterates the fictions of opinion and confirms the decisions of nature.
A room without books is like a body without a soul.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.
Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief
The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
Here is a man whose life and actions the world has already condemned – yet whose enormous fortune…has already brought him acquittal!
But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live.
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?
Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. (To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.)
The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.
The life of the dead is set in the memory of the living.
The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.
I cannot find a faithful message-bearer,” he wrote to his friend, the scholar Atticus. “How few are they who are able to carry a rather weighty letter without lightening it by reading.
If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
There is also a tradition about Socrates. He liked walking, it is recorded, until a late hour of the evening, and when someone asked him why he did this he said he was trying to work up an appetite for his dinner.
Knowledge which is divorced from justice may be called cunning rather than wisdom.
True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
No power on earth, if it labours beneath the burden of fear, can possibly be strong enough to survive.
Law applied to its extreme is the greatest injustice
There are no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under the guise of duty or the name of relationship.
Nemo enim est tam senex qui se annum non putet posse vivere.(No one is so old as to think that he cannot live one more year.)
It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.
Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.
The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.
Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.
Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.
Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.
It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.
Advice in old age is foolish for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey’s end.
As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.
Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.
The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.
Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.
Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.
Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.
I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.
The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.
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.
So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.
In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.
We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.
Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.
Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.
It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.
Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.
Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.
What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.
The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.
Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
Justice consists in doing no injury to men decency in giving them no offense.
The safety of the people shall be the highest law.
Freedom is a man’s natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.