Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.
Interpretation
Human emotions significantly influence decision-making more than objective factors.
This quote by Cicero highlights the powerful role that human emotions play in shaping our decisions. Rather than relying solely on facts, laws, or other rational criteria, people often act based on their feelings such as love, hate, and hope, indicating that our emotional state can override logical reasoning and established norms.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of emotions on leadership decisions.
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.
Worthy persons deserve to be called so because they are not carried away by the eight winds: prosperity,decline,disgrace,honor,praise,censure,suffering, and pleasure.They are neither elated by prosperity nor grieved by decline. The heavenly gods will surely protect one who is unbending before the eight winds.
Listening to other people's needs is listening to God. Noticing simple, natural beauty, hearing music, even confronting the challenge of pain and problems - that can all be listening to God too.
The Old Religion, as we call it, is closer in spirit to Native American traditions or to shamanism of the Arctic. It is not based on dogma or a set of beliefs, nor on scriptures or a sacred book revealed by a great man. Witchcraft takes it's teachings from nature, and reads inspiration in the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, the flight of birds, the slow growth of trees, and the cycles of the seasons.
Every video I'm in, every magazine cover, they stretch you; they make you perfect. It's not real life.
When two texts, or two assertions, perhaps two ideas, are in contradiction, be ready to reconcile them rather than cancel one by the other; regard them as two different facets, or two successive stages, of the same reality, a reality convincingly human just because it is too complex.
The sacred formula of positivism: love as a principle, the order as a foundation, and progress as a goal.
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