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.
Similar quotes
There are three kinds of violence: one, through our deeds; two, through our words; and three, through our thoughts. …The root of all violence is in the world of thoughts, and that is why training the mind is so important.
Before examining this more carefully and investigating its consequences, I want to dwell for a moment in the contemplation of God, to ponder His attributes in me, to see, admire, and adore the beauty of His boundless light, insofar as my clouded insight allows. Believing that the supreme happiness of the other life consists wholly of the contemplation of divine greatness, I now find that through less perfect contemplation of the same sort I can gain the greatest joy available in this life.
I shall strive not to be guilty of adding any fuel to the flames of hatred and passion which, if continued to be fed, promise to burn up whatever is left by the war of decent human feeling in Europe.
I do not mean to moralise but to those who do, I would give this advice : if you mean ultimately to deprive the best things and states of all all honour and worth then continue to talk about them as you have been doing!
Assuming if there's such a thing as reality, if you have a false relationship with it, how can you do anything but fail?
A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him.