Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

The whole of virtue consists in its practice.

Even virtue is an art; and even its devotees are divided into those who practise it and those who are merely amateurs.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.

To know what virtue is is not enough; we must endeavor to possess and to practice it, or in some other manner actually ourselves to become good.

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

May your mind be thoroughly impressed with the absolute necessity of universal virtue and goodness, as the only sure road to happiness, and may you walk therein with undeviating steps.

I think that ethical behaviour is another feature of the kind of inner discipline that leads to a happier existence.

There is no royal road or ready way to virtue.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

Virture offers the only path in this life that leads to tranquility.

It is difficult for me to regard anyone who obeys no moral principle in his conduct to be a religious man.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

A good moral character is the first essential. It is highly important not only to be learned but to be virtuous.

Birth means nothing where there is no virtue.

[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists . . . an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.

Is not virtue a negation of becoming?

Ye must leave righteous ways behind, not to speak of unrighteous ways.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

It is easy to be virtuous in prospective.

But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant.