Cicero on history

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

~ Cicero

Cicero on the precepts of the law

The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.

~ Cicero

Cicero on treason

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.

~ Cicero 56 BC

Cicero on education

To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul.

~ Cicero

Cicero on public debt and welfare

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

~ Cicero, 55 BC

Cicero on public debt

The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if Rome doesn't want to become bankrupt.

Cicero, 63 BC

Cicero on moderation and extremism

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!

~ Cicero