Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

Temperance is reason's girdle and passion's bridle, the strength of the soul and the foundation of virtue.

Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character.

Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.

Let your desires be ruled by reason.

While expressing your desires, you would need to exercise control in order to prevent them from doing harm to you or to others.

I am not allowing myself to get carried away.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

We say no to lots of things that would please us. I would like to punch people every now and then, but I don't. I would like to have something for free rather than pay for it. I would like to skip to the front of the line... I don't mean to brush aside the taste of meat, which is a powerful attraction. But its power is not without limit.

When sages commend excess, Desire is sick.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

Indulging in unrestrained and immoderate laughter is a sign of intemperance, of a want of control over one's emotions, and of failure to repress the soul's frivolity by a stern use of reason.

The hardest thing for me is restraint.

Reason without passion is sterile, but passion without reason is hysteria.

It's unrealistic not to be able to indulge.

I have such a temperament that I cannot do anything in excess.

It is difficult to stop in time because one gets carried away. But I have that strength; it is the only strength I have.

Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion.

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.

Temperance, in the nobler sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy; it does not mean a stopping short in any good thing, as in love and in faith; but it means the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting in way but as it ought.

The eye strays not while under the guidance of reason.

For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.