[48]
But with regard to those passages to which we give
the name of reflexions,1 a form of ornament which
was not employed by the ancients and, above all,
not by the Greeks, although I do find it in Cicero,
who can deny their usefulness, provided they are
relevant to the case, are not too diffuse and contribute to our success? For they strike the mind
and often produce a decisive effect by one single
blow, while their very brevity makes them cling to
the memory, and the pleasure which they produce
has the force of persuasion.
1 For this ever-recurring technical term there is no adequate translation. It means a “reflexion coached in aphoristic or epigrammatic form.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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