Cicero

But though Nature also declares by so many indications what her wish and object and desire is, we yet in a manner turn a deaf ear and will not hear her warnings.

The intercourse between friends is varied and complex, and it must often happen that causes of suspicion and offence arise, which a wise man will sometimes avoid, at other times remove, at others treat with indulgence.

The one possible cause of offence that must be faced is when the interests of your friend and your own sincerity are at stake.

Plain speaking is a cause of trouble, if the result of it is resentment, which is poison of friendship; but compliance is really the cause of much more trouble, because by indulging his faults it lets a friend plunge into headlong ruin.

They are not at all vexed at having committed a fault, but very angry at being reproved for it.

On the contrary, they ought to be grieved at the crime and glad of the correction.

I use as many terms as possible to brand this vice of light-minded, untrustworthy men, whose sole object in speaking is to please without any regard to truth.

In everything false pretence is bad, for it suspends and vitiates our power of discerning the truth.

But to nothing it is so hostile as to friendship; for it destroys that frankness without which friendship is an empty name.

For the essence of friendship being that two minds become as one, how can that ever take place if the mind of each of the separate parties to it is not single and uniform, but variable, changeable, and complex?

Can anything be so pliable, so wavering, as the mind of a man whose attitude depends not only on another's feeling and wish, but on his very looks and nods?

To admit such a man into one's intimacy at all is a sign of folly.

An open flatterer any one can detect, unless he is an absolute fool the covert insinuation of the cunning and the sly is what we have to be studiously on our guard against.

His detection is not by any means the easiest thing in the world, for he often covers his servility under the guise of contradiction, and flatters by pretending to dispute, and then at last giving in and allowing himself to be beaten, that…

It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship.

When Virtue has reared her head and shewn the light of her countenance, and seen and recognised the same light in another, she gravitates towards it, and in her turn welcomes that which the other has to shew; and from it springs up a flame…

And since the law of our nature and of our life is that a new generation is for ever springing up, the most desirable thing is that along with your contemporaries, with whom you started in the race, you may also teach what is to us the…

But in view of the instability and perishableness of mortal things, we should be continually on the look-out for some to love and by whom to be loved; for if we lose affection and kindliness from our life, we lose all that gives it charm.

For it was the virtue of the man that I loved, and that has not suffered death.

Virtue (without which friendship is impossible) is first; but next to it, and to it alone, the greatest of all things is Friendship.

For what is more charming than old age surrounded by the enthusiasm of youth?

Shall we not allow old age even the strength to teach the young, to train and equip them for all the duties of life?

Wherefore, if it is your wont to admire my wisdom--and I would that it were worthy of your good opinion and of my own surname of Sapiens--it really consists in the fact that I follow Nature, the best of guides, as I would a god, and am…

We must look after our health, use moderate exercise, take just enough food and drink to recruit, but not to overload, our strength.

Again, just as apples when unripe are torn from trees, but when ripe and mellow drop down, so it is violence that takes life from young men, ripeness from old.