Marcus Tullius Cicero Art Quotations

A thankful heart is the greatest virtue.

Things perfected by nature are better than those finished by art.

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

Life is short, but art lives forever.

Philosophy is true mother of the arts [of science].

Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.

For hardly any man dances when sober, unless he is insane. Nor does he dance while alone, nor at a respectable and moderate party. Dancing is the final phase of a wild party with fancy decorations and a multitude of delights.

Not only is there an art in knowing a thing, but also a certain art in teaching it.

Apollo, sacred guard of earth's true core, Whence first came frenzied, wild prophetic word...

The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret -- that man is black at heart: mark and avoid him.

All the arts of refinement have mutual kinship.

An old man with something of the youth in him, may feel young in mind and heart only.

Let every man practice the art that he knows best.

In all great arts, as in trees, it is the height that charms us; we care nothing for the roots or trunks, yet it could not be without the aid of these.

This, therefore, is a law not found in books, but written on the fleshly tablets of the heart, which we have not learned from man, received or read, but which we have caught up from Nature herself, sucked in and imbibed; the knowledge of which we were not taught, but for which we were made; we received it not by education, but by intuition.

When I consider the wonderful activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the future: when I behold such a number of arts and sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries hence arising,--I believe and am firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot be mortal.

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues. [Lat., Gratus animus est una virtus non solum maxima, sed etiam mater virtutum onmium reliquarum.]

Probabilities direct the conduct of the wise man.

There is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.

Because all the sick do not recover, therefore medicine is not an art.

We must be ever on the search for some persons whom we shall love and who will love us in return. If good will and affection are taken away, every joy is taken from life.

It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy, but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life.

Let art, then, imitate nature, find what she desires, and follow as she directs. For in invention nature is never last, education never first; rather the beginnings of things arise from natural talent, and ends are reached by discipline.

For just as some women are said to be handsome though without adornment, so this subtle manner of speech, though lacking in artificial graces, delights us.

The science of love is the philosophy of the heart

They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race.

The soil of their native land is dear to all the hearts of mankind.

In friendship we find nothing false or insincere; everything is straight forward, and springs from the heart.

Cicero is dead! Cicero is born! The laughter has filled me, filled me so very completely. I am the laughter. I am the jester. The soul that has served as my constant companion for so long has breached the veil of the Void finally and forever. It is now in me. It is me. The world has seen the last of Cicero the man. Behold Cicero, Fool of Hearts - laughter incarnate!

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.

Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.

It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

All the arts, which have a tendency to raise man in the scale of being, have a certain common band of union, and are connected, if I may be allowed to say so, by blood-relationship with one another.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues

For the Stoics do not say that a god is involved with the divisions in a particular liver or particular bird calls (which would be unbefitting, and unworthy of a god, and could not possibly happen); rather, the world was shaped from the beginning in

Those things are better which are perfected by nature than those which are finished by art.

The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another's heart.

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.