Browse 8 quotations connecting Cicero with Trust, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include De Amicitia, De Officiis, Laelius on Friendship. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include De Amicitia, De Officiis, Laelius on Friendship.
“A true friend is, as it were, another self.”
The phrase captures the intimacy of friendship: another person becomes close enough that concern for them resembles concern for oneself.
Source note: Cicero’s De Amicitia describes true friendship as transferring natural self-love into a bond with another person.
“Friendship springs from nature rather than from need.”
Friendship is not reduced to usefulness; Cicero argues that it arises from natural affection before calculations of advantage.
Source note: De Amicitia argues that the best friendship is sought for its own sake rather than for revenue or convenience.
“Friendship has more advantages than I can easily name.”
The value of friendship is intentionally left larger than a checklist, because companionship affects many parts of life at once.
Source note: Cicero develops the many practical and moral benefits of friendship throughout De Amicitia.
“Firm, steadfast, self-consistent men are to be chosen as friends.”
Reliable friendship depends on reliable character; steadiness matters because trust cannot grow when conduct constantly changes with advantage.
Source note: De Amicitia advises choosing friends whose character is firm and consistent.
“Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all things human and divine with mutual good-will and affection.”
Cicero defines the strongest friendship as a broad sharing of concern, judgment and goodwill rather than a narrow exchange of favors or useful contacts.
Source note: De Amicitia, section 6, Project Gutenberg #7491. Laelius is the dialogue speaker in Cicero’s philosophical treatment of friendship; the sentence defines friendship through mutual goodwill and affection.
“For we have confidence in those who we think have more understanding than ourselves”
Cicero treats confidence in another person as partly a judgment about competence: people are more willing to rely on someone they believe can understand difficult circumstances and reach sound decisions.
Source note: De Officiis, Book II, section 33, Project Gutenberg #47001. Cicero’s larger argument says public confidence depends on practical wisdom joined with justice; intelligence alone is not presented as sufficient for trust.
“The foundation of justice, moreover, is good faith—that is, truth and fidelity to promises and agreements.”
Justice depends on reliable commitments because social cooperation becomes unstable when promises and agreements are treated as optional whenever they become inconvenient.
Source note: De Officiis, Book I, section 23; Cicero defines good faith through truth and fidelity to promises and agreements.
“What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?”
Close friendship creates a rare space for frank speech because confidence in the other person removes the need for continual self-protection.
Source note: Laelius on Friendship, translated by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh in Project Gutenberg’s Treatises on Friendship and Old Age.