Skip to content

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?

— Cicero De Oratore – On the Orator (-55)

Historia vero testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis, qua voce alia nisi oratoris immortalitati commendatur?

Original text (Latin)

Another quote →

Notes from Wikiquote

Book II, Chapter 9, section 36

More quotes by Cicero

I never cease urging peace, which, however unfair, is better than the justest war in the world.

Every one is least known to himself, and it is very difficult for a man to know himself.

No sensible man (among the many things that have been written on this kind) ever imputed inconsistency to another for changing his mind.

That he was never less at leisure than when at leisure; nor that he was ever less alone than when alone.

There is nothing better fitted to delight the reader than change of circumstances and varieties of fortune.

All Cicero quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Cicero (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.