For the true sublime naturally elevates us: uplifted with a sense of proud exaltation, we are filled with joy and pride, as if we had...

We must realize, dear friend, that as in our everyday life nothing is really great which it is a mark of greatness to despise, I mean,...

Speaking of the common life of men Demosthenes declares that the greatest of all blessing is good fortune, and that next comes good...

Sublime consists in a consummate excellence and distinction of language, and that this alone gave to the greatest poets and prose writers...

And so, if we have had no better gift from the gods than speech, what else should we think so deserving of careful cultivation? In what...

They add examples from Greece and from Rome and enumerate all those who have used an eloquence ruinous not only to individuals but to the...

Cicero writes in various places that the duty of the orator is “to speak in a manner suited to persuade.” In his Rhetorica, however...

The art of speaking depends on much effort, continual study, varied kinds of exercise, long experience, profound wisdom, and unfailing...

My personal advice, which I shall enjoin, “repeat, and urge again, again,” is that in all his activities the orator should keep two...

Rhetoric would be a very easy and trivial affair if it could be comprised in a single short set of precepts. In fact, almost everything...

These people, however, also claim a reputation for “strong” speaking by their delivery. They shout at every point, and bellow everything...

Oratory is like the lyre; unless all its strings, from bottom to top, are in tune, it cannot be perfect. Quintilian. Quintilian, The...

“Why was Love believed to be a winged boy armed with arrows and a torch?” 17 ____________________________________________________________...

So the worse a teacher is, the more obscure he will be also. Quintilian. Quintilian, The Orator’s Education Books 1-2. Loeb Classical...

For clarity is the first virtue of eloquence, and the less talented a speaker is, the harder he will strive after elevation and...

“…no one excels in big things who fails in small things.” Quintilian. Quintilian, The Orator’s Education Books 1-2. Loeb Classical...

The extremely undesirable “humanity,” as it is now called, which consists of mutual praise without any regard to quality, is unseemly,...

First of all, then, let him adopt a paternal attitude towards his pupils, and regard himself as taking the place of those whose children...

The excuse of “difficulty” is a cloak for our idleness. Quintilian. Quintilian, The Orator’s Education Books 1-2. Loeb Classical Library....

Quintilian on music, “Indeed, Nature herself seems to have given this to us as a gift to lighten our labours, for song heartens even the...

But with boys, the texts to be read should be those which will best nourish the mind and develop the character. Quintilian. Quintilian,...

Give me a boy who is encouraged by praise, pleased by success, and who cries when he has lost. He is the one who will be nourished by...

They grow up in litters; if they put a foot on the ground, they are held up by helping hands on either side. We like it if they say...

As soon as his son is born, the father should form the highest expectations of him. He will then be more careful about him from the...