Cicero Quotes on Truth
Cicero, the great Roman orator and philosopher, reflected on truth from the vantage point of both rhetoric and ethics, and the quotes gathered here draw on both. As an orator he was candid about the licence of his own art, noting that rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters for the sake of a more striking effect, while insisting, by contrast, that history itself must be the light of truth. As a moralist Cicero held that truth is durable in a way that falsehood is not: true glory strikes root and even extends itself, whereas all false pretensions fall as do flowers, and nothing feigned can be lasting. He believed that a false accusation brought against a most pure and holy life is extinguished as fire is extinguished by water. Drawn from his rhetorical and philosophical works, these passages present truth as something that endures while pretence decays.
Quotes
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“Indeed rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly. Brutus , 42”
Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut aliquid dicere possint argutius. -
“De Natura Deorum–On the Nature of the Gods(45 BC) | Book II, section 2; translation by Francis Brooks”
Variant: For time destroys the fictions of error and opinion, while it confirms the determinations of nature and of truth. -
“History is truly the witness of times past, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity; whose voice, but the orator's, can entrust her to immortality?”
De Oratore–On the Orator(55 BC) | Book II, Chapter 9, section 36 -
“That which is most excellent, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded men, is dignified leisure.”
Pro Publio Sestio ; Chapter XLV -
“True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.”
De Officiis–On Duties(44 BC) | Book II, section 43 -
“Does not, as fire dropped upon water is immediately extinguished and cooled, so, does not, I say, a false accusation, when brought in contact with a most pure and holy life, instantly fall and become extinguished?”
Cicero , Pro Roscio Comodeo Oratio , 17; C.D. Yonge translation