This text is part of:
[52]
What, then, will be the difference between what is
written and what is spoken? If I were given a jury
of wise men, I should cut down a large number of
passages from the speeches not only of Cicero, but
even of Demosthenes, who is much more concise.
[p. 481]
For with such a jury there would be no need to
appeal to the emotions nor to charm and soothe the
ears, since according to Aristotle1 even exordia are
superfluous, if addressed to such persons, as they
will have no influence upon judges who are truly
wise: it will be sufficient to state the facts with
precision and significance and to marshal our array
of proofs.
1 Rhet. iii. 13.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.