Cicero

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

I criticize by creation - not by finding fault.

No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the hightest good.

We are all motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is, the more he is inspired by glory.

The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.
- All from Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 - 43 BC

About: Marcus Tullius Cicero was born at Arpinum in what is now Italy, on 3 Jan in 104 BC. His was not a powerful family but he had political ambition and went into law as a path to power. He was elected to every major Roman office (quaestor, aedile, praetor, and consul in turn), each on his first run, and each at the youngest eligible age for the office. He overreached and was banished in 58 BC, barred from political office on his return, but briefly returned to a position of influence after Julius Caesar's murder in 44 BC. Alas, he was himself murdered on Mark Antony's orders in 43 BC. His first love was politics, but he wrote philosophy when he couldn't participate in the political arena. Cicero's commentary fits well the politics of our era.