Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
Probability is the very guide of life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Probability plays a crucial role in decision-making and understanding life's uncertainties.
Cicero’s quote highlights the significance of probability in navigating life’s complexities. It suggests that understanding and applying the principles of chance can aid individuals in making informed decisions, anticipating outcomes, and embracing the uncertainties inherent in life. This perspective calls attention to the importance of rational thinking and statistical reasoning as tools for guiding one’s actions and choices.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on strategic planning, one might say, 'As Cicero said, probability is the very guide of life, which emphasizes the importance of assessing risks.'
More from Marcus Tullius Cicero
All quotes →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.
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This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.