Life & Wisdom Quote by Silius Italicus

A poet’s version of “two heads are better than one” with the velvet glove off. “Where two take counsel there is no lack of plans” isn’t praising creativity so much as diagnosing a human reflex: the moment you add a second voice, options multiply, and certainty evaporates. The line flatters collaboration while quietly warning that planning is not the scarce resource; judgment is.

Silius Italicus wrote in imperial Rome, a world where counsel was both survival tactic and political theater. Advisers hovered around power, and “taking counsel” could mean genuine deliberation or a strategic performance of consensus. In that context, “no lack of plans” reads less like optimism than an observation about abundance: factions generate proposals the way courts generate rumors. Two people can’t confer without producing an alternative course, a contingency, a hedge.

The subtext is almost cynical in its efficiency. Plans are cheap. They proliferate because they cost less than action, and because sharing responsibility feels safer than owning a choice. The quote also hints at the darker side of counsel: with two minds you don’t just get better ideas, you get more justifications. Collaboration can be a machine for rationalizing what you already wanted to do.

That’s why the line still lands in modern workplaces and politics. Meetings aren’t short on strategy decks; they’re short on decisions. Silius’s insight isn’t that teamwork is magical, but that it’s generative - and generation without selection can become its own form of paralysis.