Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
In nothing do humans approach so nearly to the gods as doing good to others.
Interpretation
Helping others elevates humanity and brings us closer to the divine.
This quote by Cicero emphasizes the noble act of doing good for others as a way to approach the divine. It suggests that in our efforts to aid and support fellow beings, we embody a quality that transcends our human limitations and aligns us with the ideals often associated with godliness.
In practice
In a speech about community service, one might reference this quote to inspire volunteerism.
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.
It is, perhaps, one of the hardest struggles of the Christian life to learn this sentence-- "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name be glory."
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
I hadn't gotten old enough yet to realize that living sends a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead. You get older, you puff on the stairs, you enter the body of your father. From there it's only a quick jump to your grandparents, and then before you know it you're time traveling. In this life we grow backwards.
I've always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact.
We judge individual man and women as we do nations and races -- by the character of their achievement and by their achievement of character.
All God's creatures are His family; and he is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to God's creatures.
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