Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

The story of Willie Stark fascinated me because it was tackling the story of a man who outwardly has all the success one could possibly want and who is destroyed by his personal demons.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

…luxury is the result of wealth, or it makes wealth necessary. It corrupts both rich and poor, the one by possessing, the other by coveting. It sells out the fatherland to indolence and vanity; it deprives the State of all its Citizens by enslaving some of them to others and all of them to opinion.

Every man is his own chief enemy.

Gollum is my picture of Dorian Gray. He will be with me for the rest of life, and I will grow to look more like him as I get older.

My biggest enemy is typically me.

The passion of acquiring riches in order to support a vain expense corrupts the purest souls.

In the end you become part of everything you hate, basically.

Every man is his own worst enemy

Ourselves within us lethal forces nurse; We make of our own enemies our guests.

O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!

beware of your most implacable enemy-yourself.

Fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step.

Man is his own worst enemy.

A victim of your own greed, wallowing in the muck of avarice.

Ain't nobody messin' with you but you

The choking, sweltering, deadly, and killing rule of no rule; the consecration of cupidity and braying of folly, and dim stupidity and baseness, in most of the affairs of men. Slopshirts attainable three-halfpence cheaper by the ruin of living bodies and immortal souls.

Never underestimate the potential for human stupidity when wealth and power are at stake.

Ingrateful man with liquorish draughts, and morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind that from it all consideration slips.

Man's will creates the things that paralyze his brain and brutalize his heart.

Luxury, that alluring pest with fair forehead, which, yielding always to the will of the body, throws a deadening influence over the senses, and weakens the limbs more than the drugs of Circe's cup.

Avarice and luxury, those evils which have been the ruin of every great state.

But in the present day men cast off gentleness, and are all for being bold; they spurn frugality, and retain only extravagance; they discard humility, and aim only at being first. Therefore they shall surely perish.

Any other town you go to there's this little devil and a little angel on your shoulder. A little good advice, a little bad advice.You go to Las Vegas, there's like a devil and a devil and they're just battling it out the whole time. It's like, "Smoke some crack!" "Get a hooker!" And then I go, "YEA! Yea, this is a good town. Smoke some crack and get a hooker! Alright!"