Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
The best interpreter of the law is custom.
Interpretation
Custom and tradition often shape the interpretation and application of law more effectively than written statutes.
This quote by Cicero emphasizes the importance of custom in understanding and interpreting the law. Rather than relying solely on written laws, Cicero suggests that societal practices and traditions can provide deeper insights and clarity in legal matters, acknowledging that human behavior and consistent customs often play a crucial role in how justice is administered and understood.
In practice
In a discussion about legal rights, I would use this quote to highlight the significance of societal norms in interpreting the law.
Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defence can actually be just.
Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.
Nothing contributes to the entertainment of the reader more, than the change of times and the vicissitudes of fortune.
No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.
Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey's end.
All normal life, Peter, consciously or otherwise, resent domination. If the domination is by an inferior, or by a supposed inferior, the resentment becomes stronger.
Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself.
Being, belief and reason are pure relations, which cannot be dealt with absolutely, and are not things but pure scholastic concepts, signs for understanding, not for worshipping, aids to awaken our attention, not to fetter it.
In the beginning there was the word. The word was Jah. The word is in I, Jah is in I. I make what is good, better, and what is better, best. I follow this in every aspect of life.
Deserts possess a particular magic, since they have exhausted their own futures, and are thus free of time. Anything erected there, a city, a pyramid, a motel, stands outside time. It's no coincidence that religious leaders emerge from the desert. Modern shopping malls have much the same function. A future Rimbaud, Van Gogh or Adolf Hitler will emerge from their timeless wastes.
I find it most true that the greatest temptation outside of hell is to live without temptations; if water stands, it rots; faith is the better for the sharp winter storm in its face and grace withers without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer to teach us to handle our weapons.
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