Use divination the way Socrates did — only for things where you can't figure out the outcome through thinking or skill. When it's your duty to share danger with a friend or your country, don't ask an oracle whether you should do it. Even if the fortune-teller warns you that bad signs point to death, injury, or exile, so what? You have reason inside you. It tells you to stand by your friend and country despite these risks. Listen to the greater fortune-teller — the god Apollo — who once threw someone out of his temple for failing to save his friend.
Come to divination as Socrates prescribed, in cases of which the whole consideration relates to the event, and in which no opportunities are afforded by reason or any other art to discover the matter in view. When, therefore, it is our duty to share the danger of a friend or of our country, we ought not to consult the oracle as to whether we shall share it with them or not. For though the diviner should forewarn you that the auspices are unfavorable, this means no more than that either death or mutilation or exile is portended. But we have reason within us; and it directs us, even with these hazards, to stand by our friend and our country. Attend, therefore, to the greater diviner, the Pythian God, who once cast out of the temple him who neglected to save his friend.