Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.
Interpretation
Nurturing the mind is essential for overall well-being, just as nutrition is crucial for physical health.
This quote by Cicero emphasizes the importance of mental development and intellectual nourishment, paralleling it with the physical need for food. Just as the body requires sustenance for energy and health, the mind needs education, knowledge, and mental stimulation to function optimally and lead a fulfilling life.
In practice
In a speech about lifelong learning, I quoted Cicero to emphasize the need for continuous education.
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.
There are so many kids in this country growing up in poverty, facing very, very hard challenges... We need resilience for all of them.
Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.
The Spirit is not given to make Bible study needless, but to make it effective.
I think it's the strength of the idea that's made Donors Choose work, not me. I mean, I'm determined, and I work hard, but so does everyone else.
This willingness continually to revise one's own location in order to place oneself in the path of beauty is the basic impulse underlying education. One submits oneself to other minds (teachers) in order to increase the chance that one will be looking in the right direction when a comet makes its sweep through a certain patch of sky.
When I was young we weren't even allowed to speak our own languages in school. They called it 'vernacular,' as if only English was the real tongue.
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