Cicero on Oratory and Orators: With His Letters to Quintus and Brutus |
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accused acquired admired affairs agreeable Antonius appear arguments Aristotle art of speaking Atticus audience brother Quintus Brut Brutus Cæsar Caius Cato Catulus cause Centumviri character Cicero citizens civil law Clodius consul consulship Cotta Crassus defend Demosthenes desire dignity Domitius elegant Ellendt eloquence eminent Ennius Ernesti everything excellent excite expression favour feel Galba genius give Gracchus greatest Greeks hear heard honour Hortensius imitation Isocrates judges judgment kind knowledge Lælius language learning Lentulus letter Lucius Lysias manner Marcus Marcus Crassus matter means mentioned merit mind nature never observed Octavius opinion orator oratory palæstra panegyric peculiar person philosophers Plato pleading Pompey prætor praise precepts profession Proust Publius Crassus Quintilian regard replied republic Roman Rome Scævola seems senate Servius Galba speaker speech spoke style Sulpicius things thought Tiberius Gracchus tion tribune tribuneship virtue voice whole wish words write youth
Popular passages
Page 301 - Silio consule designato, cuius de potentia et exitio in tempore memorabo, consurgunt patres legemque Cinciam flagitant, qua cavetur antiquitus ne quis ob causam orandam pecuniam donumve accipiat.
Page 143 - What can I say of that repository for all things, the memory, which, unless it be made the keeper of the matter and words that are the fruits of thought and invention, all the talents of the orator, we see, though they be of the highest degree of excellence, will be of no avail...
Page 264 - For mankind make far more determinations through hatred, or love, or desire, or anger, or grief, or joy, or hope, or fear, or error, or some other affection of mind, than from regard to truth, or any settled maxim, or principle of right, or judicial form, or adherence to the laws.
Page 472 - I insisted upon it as a material circumstance in favour of my client, that the prosecutor, while he charged him with a design against his life, and assured us that he had the most indubitable proofs of it then in his hands, related his story with as much ease, and as much calmness, and indifference, as if nothing had happened.
Page 144 - In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an orator / possessed of every praiseworthy accomplishment, unless he has attained the knowledge of everything important, and of all liberal arts, for his language must be ornate and copious from knowledge, since, unless there be beneath the surface matter understood and felt by the speaker, oratory becomes an empty and almost puerile flow of words.
Page 177 - I habituated myself to use such words as were less eligible. Afterwards I thought proper, and continued the practice at a rather more advanced age, to translate the orations of the best Greek orators ; by fixing upon which I gained this advantage, that while I rendered into Latin what I had read in Greek, I not only used the best words, and yet such as were of common occurrence, but also formed some words by imitation, which would be new to our countrymen, taking care, however, that they were unobjectionable.
Page 174 - That since all the business and art of an orator is divided into five parts,1 he ought first to find out what he should say; next, to dispose and arrange his matter, not only in a certain order, but with a sort of power and judgment...
Page 465 - from what has just been mentioned, that a pure and correct style is the groundwork, and the very basis and foundation, upon which an Orator must build his other accomplishments: though, it is true, that those who had hitherto possessed it, derived it more from early habit, than from any principles of art. It is needless to refer you to the instances of...
Page 147 - For it is by this one gift that we are most distinguished from brute animals, that we converse together, and can express our thoughts by speech. Who, therefore, would not justly make this an object of admiration, and think it worthy of his utmost exertions, to surpass mankind themselves in that single excellence by which they claim their superiority over brutes ? But, that we may notice the most important point of all, what other power could either have assembled mankind, when dispersed, into one...
Page 178 - ... but in those matters we ought to be particularly careful whom we imitate and whom we would wish to resemble. Not only orators are to be observed by us, but even actors, lest by vicious habits we contract any awkwardness or ungracefulness. The memory is also to be exercised, by learning accurately by heart as many of our own writings, and those of others, as we can. In exercising the memory, too, I shall not object if you accustom yourself to adopt that plan of referring to places and figures...