All men have a feeling, that they would rather you told them a civil lie than give them a point blank refusal.... If you make a promise, the thing is still uncertain, depends on a future day, and concerns but few people; but if you refuse you alienate people to a certainty and at once, and many people too.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Categorized in : People Lying Men

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.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

world-government tyrants moving

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.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

crush mistake believe

Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.'

Marcus Tullius Cicero

rome loss mean

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

born politician

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

time thank-you children

The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

rome political land

As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age; first, it withdraws us from active accomplishments; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

powerful giving past

When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

honorable-man powerful men

A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within....for the traitor appears not to be a traitor...he rots the soul of a nation...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

ambitious body soul

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

honor hero war

They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

brotherhood forever justice

Though liberty is established by law, we must be vigilant, for liberty to enslave us is always present under that very liberty. Our Constitution speaks of the "general welfare of the people." Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by lusting tyrants to make us bondsmen.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

tyrants law people

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

political government liars

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.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

reading law heart

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

acquire enough

More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

thieves decision opportunity

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

educational inspirational book

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

wisdom wise inspirational

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

fool quality peculiar

The Jews belong to a dark and repulsive force. One knows how numerous this clique is, how they stick together and what power they exercise through their unions. They are a nation of rascals and deceivers.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

dark together exercise