Cicero Quotes on Justice
Cicero's De Officiis (44 BC), De Legibus, and De Re Publica supply the Roman synthesis of Stoic and Academic philosophy with Roman political experience that shaped Western natural-law theory through Augustine, Aquinas, the medieval canonists, and the early modern social contract tradition. Justice for Cicero is rooted in the natural law — right reason in agreement with nature, universal and unchanging, the standard above which no human enactment can rise — and the four cardinal virtues (wisdom, justice, courage, moderation) of the Greek philosophical tradition are the practical expression of life lived in accordance with that law. The argument was transmitted to the Latin West largely through Cicero's own works rather than through direct Greek sources, and remains the most influential statement of classical natural-law theory in the canon.
Quotes
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Attributed to Cicero:
“Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offence.”
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Attributed to Cicero:
“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage.”
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Attributed to Cicero:
“We are servants of the laws so that we may be free.”
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Attributed to Cicero:
“The safety of the people shall be the highest law.”
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“As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars. Epistulae ad Atticum (Letters to Atticus) Book VII, Letter 14, section 3; as translated by E.O. Winstedt in the Loeb Classical Library”
Equidem ad pacem hortari non desino; quae vel iniusta utilior est quam iustissimum bellum cum civibus. -
“Injustice often arises also through chicanery, that is, through an over-subtle and even fraudulent construction of the law. This it is that gave rise to the now familiar saw, "More law, less justice."”
De Officiis–On Duties(44 BC) | Book I, section 33; translation by Walter Miller. -
“I have always been of the opinion that infamy earned by doing what is right is not infamy at all, but glory.”
In Catilinam I–Against Catiline(63 BC) | Speech I -
“As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars.”
Epistulae ad Atticum (Letters to Atticus) Book VII, Letter 14, section 3; as translated by E.O. Winstedt in the Loeb Classical Library