Accordingly, in encountering danger we should do as doctors do in their practice: in light cases of illness they give mild treatment; in cases of dangerous sickness they are compelled to apply hazardous and even desperate remedies.
Writing on the nature of duty, Cicero uses a medical analogy to illustrate the appropriate response to different levels of danger.
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Again, is there not the fact that the wisest man ever dies with the greatest cheerfulness, the most unwise with the least?
But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live.
But had it not been the case that souls were immortal, it would not have been the souls of all the best men that made the greatest efforts after an immortality of fame.
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