Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

It is in our hearts that evil lies, and it is from our hearts that it must be plucked out.

This is the essential evil of vice, that it debases man.

It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.

Hypocrisy is a fearful evil, and every thing which has a tendency to produce it should be avoided.

There aren't demons flying around with horns, people are demons.

No one becomes depraved all at once.

The evil in the world is all of our own making, and it proceeds entirely from our ruthless, senseless, wasteful, destructive, and suicidal neglect of our own being.

Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race.

The heart of man is "deceitful and desperately wicked."

Every fresh act of sin lessens fear and remorse, hardens our hearts, blunts the edge of our conscience, and increases our evil inclination.

When secularization has had its full sway, it will leave a generation devoid of shame. And if you show me a generation that lacks shame, I will show you a generation that is monstrous in its appetite... never satisfied.

The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language.

You had evil inside you, and you indulged it. Men will always indulge it.

No man ever became very wicked all at once.

If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?

Were the life of man prolonged, he would become such a proficient in villainy, that it would become necessary again to drown or to burn the world. Earth would become an hell; for future rewards when put off to a great distance, would cease to encourage, and future punishments to alarm.

Man is not born wicked; he becomes so, as he becomes sick.

There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.

All evil is good become cancerous.

You could say that evil is contagious in that we have this mesmerizing mentor in Uncle Charlie who comes into your life. Every person has a seed of evil inside them, and when you come across such a mesmerizing mentor, he is able to successfully turn it into a flower of evil.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

This is a fallen world. People lie, the truth gets distorted, and that's the way it is. What's for dinner ?

Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you -- and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us!

There is more evil in the least sin than in the greatest affliction.

So possible is it for us to roll ourselves up in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of pleasure continues to flow or till something dark and dreadful brings us to ourselves again.