Cicero on Justice and Injustice

"The foundation of justice, moreover, is good_faith; — that is, truth and fidelity to promises and agreements. And therefore we may follow the Stoics, who diligently investigate the etymology of words; and we may accept their statement that "good faith" is so called because what is promised is "made good," although some may find this derivation/a rather farfetched. There are, on the other hand, two kinds of injustice — the one, on the part of those who inflict wrong, the other on the part of those who, when they can, do not shield from wrong those upon whom it is being inflicted. For he who, under the influence of anger or some other passion, wrongfully assaults another seems, as it were, to be laying violent hands upon a comrade; but he who does not prevent or oppose wrong, if he can, is just as guilty of wrong as if he deserted his parents or his friends or his country.

Then, too, those very wrongs which people try to inflict on purpose to injure are often the result of fear: that is, he who premeditates injuring another is afraid that, if he does not do so, he may himself be made to suffer some hurt. But, for the most part, people are led to wrong-doing in order to secure some personal end; in this vice, avarice is generally the controlling motive."
From
DE OFFICIIS
By
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Translated by Walter Miller.
Loeb edn.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1913

Cicero on Morals and Moral Duties

"Although philosophy offers many problems, both important and useful, that have been fully and carefully discussed by philosophers, those teachings which have been handed down on the subject of moral duties seem to have the widest practical application. For no phase of life, whether public or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns oneself alone or dealing with another, can be without its moral duty; on the discharge of such duties depends all that is morally right, and on their neglect all that is morally wrong in life.

Moreover, the subject of this inquiry is the common property of all philosophers; for who would presume to call himself a philosopher, if he did not inculcate any lessons of duty? But there are some schools that distort all notions of duty by the theories they propose touching the supreme good and the supreme evil. For he who posits the supreme good as having no connection with virtue and measures it not by a moral standard but by his own interests — if he should be consistent and not rather at times over-ruled by his better nature, he could value neither friendship nor justice nor generosity; and brave he surely cannot possibly be that counts pain the supreme evil, nor temperate he that holds pleasure to be the supreme good."
From
DE OFFICIIS
By Marcus Tullius Cicero

Translated by Walter Miller.
Loeb edn.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1913

Cicero on True Law, Holding Humans Accountable

"True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong doing by its prohibitions..... It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it.... There will be one master and one rule, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly considered punishment." - Cicero

God and Natural Law, Cicero, and Our Founding Fathers

"And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens,or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and for all times, and there will be one master and one rule, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge." --Marcus Tullius Cicero

The 4th Principle From "The 5000 Year Leap"
"Without Religion the Government
of a Free People Cannot be Maintianed"

From The Declaration of Independence
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Rome, B.C., Cicero, and America Today?--Sunday's Quote

I hope at least one person, at each of the "Tea Parties" this week, will repeat these words of Cicero!
-Hannah


"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury

should be refilled, public debt should be

reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be

tempered and controlled, and the assistance to

foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome

become bankrupt. People must again learn to

work, instead of living on public assistance." -Marcus Tullius Cicero

Sunday's Quote from 58 yrs. B.C.-- Cicero and Saving the Republic

To find out more about Cicero's impact on the Founding of our country, read "The 5000 Year Leap"!!

History is reapeating itself.

-Hannah

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague." -Marcus Tullius Cicero(106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
58 BC, Speech in the Roman Senate