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Generally a good read. Marketed like a "self-help rise&grind" book (and could easily be one) but the translation and excerpts chosen are really excellent.

Contains 4 excerpts from individual texts: The Tusculuans, On Duties, Laelius, On the Orator, and The Dream of Scipio. The surprise find was Laelius: On Friendship, which I think we could all learn from. Sharing some of my favorite quotes here:

"When there is real friendship, no element of falsity or pretence can possibly enter into the matter.
It cannot under any circumstances be derived from any calculation of potential profit. It comes from a feeling of affection, an inclination of the heart."

"When a man shows kindness and generosity, his motive in doing so is not just to exact repayment. We do not hire out our favours and charge interest for them: we behave kindly because that is the natural thing to do. The reason why we count friendship as a blessing is not because we are hoping for a material return. It is because the union is quite enough profit in itself."

"A wise man cannot possibly escape having any feelings of distress whatsoever - unless every trace of humanity has first been rooted out from his heart. Consequently, to remove friendship from our lives, just because it might bring us worries, would be the biggest possible mistake. For if we eliminate all human emotions, there is no difference left."

"When good and wise men enter into a friendship, they conduct it according to two rules. First, there must not be the slightest element of pretense or hypocrisy. Any decent person would rather hate openly than conceal his true thoughts behind an insincere expression. Secondly, a friend should be pleasant in conversation and manner, since these are things which add spice to any relationship. To be solemn and austere on all occasions may be impressive, but friendship ought to be something freer and more relaxed and more agreeable, paying greater attention to pleasant and amiable behaviour."

"People who enjoy being flattered are not really after virtue at all, but merely the outward semblance of virtue.A lot of people are less concerned to be virtuous than to look it."

"Friendship embraces everything worth pursuing by mankind - goodness, and fame, and peace of mind, and satisfaction: the things which make life happy when we have them, whereas without them there can be no question of happiness at all.... This happiness is the summit of our best ambitions. If we are to get it, we shall have to concentrate on raising our behaviour to the very highest standard that morality can achieve. If we fail to do this, we can achieve neither friendship nor, for that matter, any other worthwhile objective."

"If a man ascended in heaven and gazed upon the whole workings of the universe and the beauty of the stars, the marvellous sight would give him no joy if he had to keep it to himself. And yet, if only there had been someone to describe the spectacle to, it would have filled him with delight."

(My favorite part of all this is in the Translator's note where he disclaimed that the love Cicero talks of is not homosexual in nature but rather of statesmanship and love between fellow citizens. That's the Christian puritanism seeping in. I'm sure most Roman statesmen (in the Republic or the Empire) had no qualms about homosexuality. Or, really, makes distinctions between male platonic/sexual love)

(This makes for an interesting interpretation of writings on friendship and love in modern scholarship)