Cicero

Now, suppose a wise man had just such a ring, he would not imagine that he was free to do wrong any more than if he did not have it; for good men aim to secure not secrecy but the right.

Many cases oftentimes arise to perplex our minds with a specious appearance of expediency: the question raised in these cases is not whether moral rectitude is to be sacrificed to some considerable advantage (for that would of course be…

And so expediency gained the day because of its moral lightness; for without moral rectitude there could have been no possible expediency.

Thus in the stadium of life, it is not unfair for anyone to seek to obtain what is needful for his own advantage, but he has no right to wrest it from his neighbour.

But for our guidance in all such cases we have a rule that is short and easy to master: apparent advantages--political preferment, riches, sensual pleasures, and the like--should never be preferred to the obligations of friendship.

It is then characteristic of a rightly ordered mind to be pleased at what is good and grieved at the reverse.

For nothing is really more delightful than a return of affection, and the mutual interchange of kind feeling and good offices.

No act of theirs can be expedient, when what they do is tainted with so many vices.

The Latin word for friendship--amicitia--is derived from that for love--amor; and love is certainly the prime mover in contracting mutual affection.

And with the exception of wisdom, I am inclined to think nothing better than this has been given to man by the immortal gods.

We shall get the most important material advantages from friendship; and its origin from a natural impulse rather than from a sense of need will be at once more dignified and more in accordance with fact.

Their aim is that they may be on the same footing and the same level in regard to affection, and be more inclined to do a good service than to ask a return, and that there should be this noble rivalry between them.

Let this, then, be laid down as the first law of friendship, that we should ask from friends, and do for friends', only what is good.

You can never trust a character which is intricate and tortuous.

Wherefore, though it is with those who catch at and invite it that this flattering falsehood is especially powerful, yet men even of soldier and steadier character must be warned to be on the watch against being taken in by cunningly…

Nor is it the body alone that must be supported, but the intellect and soul much more.

That, therefore, which young men--not only uninstructed, but absolutely ignorant--treat as of no account, shall men who are neither young nor ignorant shrink from in terror?

For of course rashness is the note of youth, prudence of old age.

Therefore nothing can be so execrable and so fatal as pleasure; since, when more than ordinarily violent and lasting, it darkens all the light of the soul.

Could such a high spirit fail to make old age pleasant?

I will put it briefly: nothing can either furnish necessaries more richly, or present a fairer spectacle, than well-cultivated land.

For nature has given us a place of entertainment, not of residence.

For nature puts a limit to living as to everything else.

But I quit life as I would an inn, not as I would a home.

It is one thing to live with a tyrant, another with a friend.