Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts, it is something celestial and divine.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the human mind and spirit possess a divine quality due to their capacity for thought and action.
Cicero reflects on the essence of humanity, implying that our ability to think, understand, will, and act elevates us beyond mere physical existence. This characterization of the human intellect as 'celestial and divine' recognizes the unique and profound nature of human consciousness, suggesting a higher purpose or origin connected to divine or celestial qualities.
In practice
This quote would be powerful in a discussion about the nature of consciousness in a philosophy class.
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.
Fine #β wine is a living liquid ... Its life comprises youth, maturity, old age, and death.
The apparent multiplication of gods is bewildering at the first glance, but you soon discover that they are the same GOD. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at home with it.
Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him.
History is how we have learnt to think about ourselves. It's not as though the Greeks and Romans are static entities out there to be discovered and translated. We make them speak, we talk to them, and they inform what we say.
Partial truths or half-truths are often more insidious than total falsehoods.
Nobody had noticed, nobody had paid attention, but, as usual, the essential part of the matter had been settled before the story had begun, and by then it was too late.
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