Cicero

History is indeed the witness of times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity; by what other voice, if not that of the orator, is immortality commended?

I would prefer inarticulate wisdom to loquacious foolishness.

True glory takes root and spreads; all pretenses quickly fall like flowers, and nothing feigned can last.

We place the happy life in the security of the mind and in freedom from all obligations.

Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.

How long, O Catilina, will you abuse our patience?

The beginnings of all things are small.

For philosophy accomplishes this: it heals the mind, removes empty anxieties, frees from desires, and drives away fears.

All praise of virtue consists in action.

While I breathe, I hope.

Therefore, young people seem to me to die in such a way that they are overwhelmed by the force of flames when faced with a multitude of waters, while old people die in a manner akin to a fire that is extinguished without any force applied to it; and just as unripe fruit is hardly plucked from trees, but ripe and cooked fruit falls off, so the force takes life from the young, while maturity takes it from the old; which indeed seems to me so pleasant that, the closer I get to death, I feel as if I am about to see land and eventually arrive in port after a long voyage.