125 definitions
Academy (n.) keeps a hereditary custom: every member argues against everyone else, never delivering his own opinion.
Anger (n.) has been roused in many a judge by orators who never paused to learn whether it is 'a heat of temper' or 'a desire of vengeance for pain received'.
Eloquence (n.) as the philosophers practise it is neat and florid, made for parade in the schools rather than for the tumults of the city and the forum.
Eloquence (n.) is far rarer than good speaking: the good speaker says what he thinks accurately and clearly to an ordinary audience, the eloquent man amplifies and adorns whatever he chooses — and Antonius had known many of the first and none of the second.
Equity (n.) argued with eloquence can rout the letter of the law argued with learning: Galba piled up cases against Crassus's correct answer until the great lawyer could only retreat to his books.
Integrity (n.) can lose its case: Rutilius would not let his defence carry more ornament than the plain truth, and was condemned as if tried in Plato's imaginary commonwealth — no one groaned, no one implored, no one even stamped a foot, for fear of renouncing the Stoics.
Justice (n.) as Plato conceived it was so at odds with ordinary life and the customs of the world that he had to invent a new commonwealth to hold it.
Lawyer (n.) who lacks eloquence is nothing but a wary and acute legalist — an instructor in actions, a repeater of forms, a catcher at syllables.
Orator (n.) is judged more harshly than any other artist: when Roscius fails he was 'indisposed', but when a speaker fails it is put down to want of sense, which admits no excuse.
Orator (n.) must combine the acuteness of the logician, the wisdom of the philosopher, almost the language of the poet, the memory of the lawyer, the voice of the tragedian and almost the gesture of the best actors — which is why nothing is rarer among mankind.
Orator (n.) Crassus describes is bounded not by the limits of the art but by the almost immense limits of Crassus's own genius.
Orator (n.) should have heard, seen and read much — not taking possession of subjects as his own property, but tasting them as things belonging to others.
Orator (n.) makes the troubles of life seem heavier and more grievous than they really are, and its attractions more inviting than they are.
Orator (n.) needs divination more than philosophy: he must guess what his hearers think, feel, imagine and hope, in every class, age and rank.
Orator (n.) need not know the law: where it is clear no case comes to trial, and where lawyers disagree he takes some authority's javelins ready-made and hurls them with an orator's arm.
Oratory (n.) can reach the highest perfection without philosophy — and the disciples of Socrates, who was condemned for nothing but his want of skill in speaking, are odd people to teach it.
Pedantry (n.) loses the crowd: a speaker must not seem so wise among fools that his hearers, however they admire him, feel they are idiots to him.