written in 44 BC and originally titled On Old Age
Translated and with an introduction by Philip Freeman
ISBN 9780691167701
E-book ISBN 9781400880393
Shows the original text for those oldies looking to learn a new language
written in 44 BC and originally titled On Old Age
Translated and with an introduction by Philip Freeman
ISBN 9780691167701
E-book ISBN 9781400880393
Shows the original text for those oldies looking to learn a new language
Cicero was a very wise man.
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."- Cicero - 55 BC
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C. – 43 B.C.)
"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and given him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the new wonderful good society which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean more money, more ease, more security, and more living fatly at the expense of the industrious." --Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)