Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes
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.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione. Translated by W. A. Falconer, Harvard UP, 1923, p. 209.
The translation into the word "love" includes love of things as well as people. The Eigen translation is "All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of those relationships with people and those thiongs about which a person is passionate." The Greeks had 7 diffferent words for love od different kinds and things. But the Latin in which this was written is a much less precice lanaguage, quite like English in that respect. The object of the passion might be people, a political movement, a area of study and inquiry like science or mathamatics, the production of something as in art music or literature--even a sport. But if the quality of the object of the passion is poor, the happiness rarely lasts.
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, orator, lawyer and philosopher, who served as consul in the year 63 BC. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
