Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
Hours and days and months and years go by; the past returns no more, and what is to be we cannot know; but whatever the time gives us in which we live, we should therefore be content.
Interpretation
We should find contentment in the present moment, as the past is gone and the future is uncertain.
This quote emphasizes the importance of living in the present and being content with the time we have. Cicero reflects on the transient nature of time, reminding us that while we cannot change the past or predict the future, we can choose to embrace the present and find satisfaction in it. The essence of life is to appreciate what is currently available to us, rather than lamenting what has passed or worrying about what is yet to come.
In practice
During a motivational speech about mindfulness and living in the moment.
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.
Self-definition and self-determination is about the many varied decisions that we make to compose and journey toward ourselves, about the audacity and strength to proclaim, create, and evolve into who we know ourselves to be. It’s okay if your personal definition is in a constant state of flux as you navigate the world.
Here, in Alethkar, men often spoke of the legends -- of mankind's hard-won victory over the Voidbringers. But when weapons created to fight nightmares were turned against common soldiers, the lives of men became cheap things indeed.
Logic doesn't apply to the real world. D. R. Hofstadter and D. C. Dennett (eds.) The Mind's I, 1981.
The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me
My understanding of my faith is that - through a Christian framework - part of what we are called to do is to lay down our own self-interests, after the model of divinity that comes into this world in the form of Christ and lays down his life. And in order to do that, you have to care about something or someone more than yourself.
When a person goes to a country and finds their newspapers filled with nothing but good news, he can bet there are good men in jail.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.