Ancient Roman Philosophers

Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.

—Marcus Aurelius

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.

—Cicero

What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

—Julius Caesar

I came to Rome when it was a city of stone … and left it a city of marble

—Julius Caesar

For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.

—Marcus Aurelius

It is better to suffer once than to be in perpetual apprehension.

—Julius Caesar

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

—Marcus Aurelius

The die has been cast.

—Julius Caesar

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

—Cicero

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

—Marcus Aurelius

Human nature is universally imbued with a desire for liberty, and a hatred for servitude.

—Julius Caesar

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

—Marcus Aurelius

It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the hungry-looking.

—Julius Caesar

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.

—Julius Caesar

Divide and conquer.

—Julius Caesar

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

—Cicero

I love the name of honor, more than I fear death.

—Julius Caesar

Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.

—Marcus Aurelius

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

—Marcus Aurelius

As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men’s minds more seriously than what they see.

—Julius Caesar

Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory.

—Julius Caesar

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

—Marcus Aurelius

“To live is to think.”

—Marcus Tullius Cicero

Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.

—Julius Caesar

As a rule, men worry more about what they can’t see than about what they can.

—Julius Caesar

War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished.

—Julius Caesar

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

—Marcus Aurelius

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

—Marcus Aurelius

If I fail it is only because I have too much pride and ambition.

—Julius Caesar

What we do now echoes in eternity.

—Marcus Aurelius