Marcus Tullius Cicero Law Quotations

The safety of the people shall be the highest law.

When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.

The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free.

Laws should be interpreted in a liberal sense so that their intention may be preserved.

Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.

To know the laws is not to memorize their letter but to grasp their full force and meaning.

According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

The good of the people is the greatest law.

Law is intelligence, whose natural function it is to command right conduct and forbid wrongdoing

We are in bondage to the law so that we might be free

We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free

The welfare of the people is the ultimate law

When war is raging the laws are dumb.

Time puts an end to speculation in opinions, and confirms the laws of nature.

Not in opinion but in nature is law founded.

Law is the highest reason implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.

Laws are inoperative in war

Who does not know that the first law of historical writing is the truth.

God's law is 'right reason.' When perfectly understood it is called 'wisdom.' When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called 'justice.

True law is right reason in agreement with nature;...it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions...It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely.

More law, less justice.

The devil finds work for idle hands to do. Better to reign in the hell than serve in heaven. We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free.

There is in fact a true law namely right reason, which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men and is unchangeable and eternal. ... It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today and another tomorrow. But there will be one law eternal and unchangeable binding all times and upon all peoples.

Laws are dumb in the midst of arms.

In times of war, the law falls silent.

Who doesn't know that the first law of history is not to dare to say anything false, and the second is not to refrain from saying anything true?

Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.

What is impossible by the nature of things is not confirmed by any law.

Who does not know history's first law to be that an author must not dare to tell anything but the truth? And its second that he must make bold to tell the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of partiality anywhere in his writings? Nor of malice?

For what people have always sought is equality before the law. For rights that were not open to all alike would be no rights.

Law stands mute in the midst of arms.

The law is silent during war. [Lat., Silent leges inter arma.]

Let the force of arms give place to law and justice.

For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate.

A s laws multiply, injustice increases.

If nature does not ratify law, then all the virtues may lose their sway.

But in every matter the consensus of opinion among all nations is to be regarded as the law of nature.

The gardener plants trees, not one berry of which he will ever see: and shall not a public man plant laws, institutions, government, in short, under the same conditions?

The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice.

Let the welfare of the people be the ultimate law.

For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.

More laws, less justice.

The more laws, the less justice.

We are bound by the law, so that we may be free.

Laws are silent in time of war.

The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong

Strict law is often great injustice.

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.

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.

The law in Athens is true in Rome