Cicero - The nature of the Gods - and great quotes

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Cicero :

 

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on January 3, 106 BC and was murdered

on December 7, 43 BC. His life coincided with the decline and fall of

the Roman Republic, and he was an important actor in many of the

significant political events of his time (and his writings are now a

valuable source of information to us about those events). He was,

among other things, an orator, lawyer, politician, and philosopher.

Making sense of his writings and understanding his philosophy

requires us to keep that in mind. He placed politics above

philosophical study; the latter was valuable in its own right but was

even more valuable as the means to more effective political action.

The only periods of his life in which he wrote philosophical works

were the times he was forcibly prevented from taking part in politics

 

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The nature of the Gods

XXII. If you should ask me what God is, or what his character and

nature are, I should follow the example of Simonides, who, when Hiero

the tyrant proposed the same question to him, desired a day to

consider of it. When he required his answer the next day, Simonides

begged two days more; and as he kept constantly desiring double the

number which he had required before instead of giving his answer,

Hiero, with surprise, asked him his meaning in doing so: " Because, "

says he, " the longer I meditate on it, the more obscure it appears to

me. " Simonides, who was not only a delightful poet, but reputed a

wise and learned man in other branches of knowledge, found, I

suppose, so many acute and refined arguments occurring to him, that

he was doubtful which was the truest, and therefore despaired of

discovering any truth.

 

IIVII

……..

Let me take for granted that which is perfectly unintelligible; then

tell me what are the lineaments and figures of these sketched-out

Deities. Here you have plenty of arguments by which you would show

the Gods to be in human form. The first is, that our minds are so

anticipated and prepossessed, that whenever we think of a Deity the

human shape occurs to us. The next is, that as the divine nature

excels all things, so it ought to be of the most beautiful form, and

there is no form more beautiful than the human; and the third is,

that reason cannot reside in any other shape.

 

 

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Famous quotes of Cicero

 

o The spirit is the true self. The spirit, the will to win, and

the will to excel are the things that endure.

 

o One who sees the Supersoul accompanying the individual soul

in all bodies and who understands that neither the soul nor the

Supersoul is ever destroyed, actually sees.

 

o No one was ever great without some portion of divine

inspiration.

 

o Next to God we are nothing. To God we are Everything

 

o As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so

also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and

holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes

and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.