Marcus Tullius Cicero

“ In short, if we consider the history of Rome through all the struggles betwixt the people and the senate, we find it no other than a struggle betwixt property which was vested in the senate, and power which lay in the people. ”

“ In a free state the passions are strong, under tyranny they must appear languid. The preserving this appearance of languor renders them at last what they only seemed to be before. Eloquence by this means loses her noblest object; she labours to raise the dead, or the insensible, she loses both her power and their effects; and from being a manly study degenerates into a servile accomplishment.
It is therefore only from the precepts and practice of those who lived under free states, that we can expect to know the virtues and beauties of this divine art. ”

“ In England any man who knows the least of our laws and constitution, may perceive that every act of the legislature, every enacting measure that binds either the whole, or a part of the public, and every decision upon the life or the liberty of a subject must pass through an assembly of the people, either in their representative, incorporate, or collective capacity. ”

“ They are so far from being impracticable, that every man of sense who speaks in public practises them in a greater or a less degree, and they are not founded upon any hypothesis, but reduced into a system from the reputed and unvarying experience of their effects. In short, though they are adapted to the use of mankind in general, yet they are most useful to the people, who, of all mankind, in their government and enjoyment of their civil rights and liberties, have the nearest resemblance to the people, for whose use they were most immediately intended. ”

“ The possession of private property in old Rome was perhaps more precarious than it was in any state we read of; it depended so totally upon the judge, and power came to be so much engrossed by men of eloquence, that the man who was the advocate for property was its guardian, and generally either wholly, or in part came in the end to inherit it. ”

“ Good sense may subsist without learning, but this its aim is more uncertain, and its effects more irregular than when it has the assistance of the examples, the sentiments and the precepts of the greatest men of former ages. If we carry this observation further, we find that as the learning which has not the improvement of good sense ultimately in view is childish, so the good sense which has not virtue for its end, is dangerous. It was owing to the conviction of this great maxim that the Romans arose to such a height of power under many disadvantages of their constitution. ”

“ The acquisitions obtained by the people were wrested from the senate, upon the great principle of the safety of the people being the first law in government, and that no positive institution could take place or stand in the way, of this great principle. Upon this principle they succeeded; but their success brought them to the brink of ruin: it is easy to raise a spirit in a people; but to know where to fix the proper bounds of that spirit is difficult. The passions of a people, though right and virtuous, may be corrupted by the private views of artful men ”

“ For though a particular taste in particular arts may prevail in most countries, yet eloquence being founded on reason, which is every where the same, and operating upon the passions of mankind, which differ only in their degrees of strength and weakness, its precepts are universal and eternal. ”

“ The highest assembly of the commons we know of in this country is an assembly in which every measure, and every decision is subjected to free and impartial debate. In subordinate assemblies no man is precluded from delivering his sentiments with freedom upon every measure under their deliberation; and the man who speaks well, if he does not always meet with success, is sure never to miss of applause. ”

“ There is no man who is endowed with a share of property, without any legal disqualification, who may not some time be a member of either the one or the other, and he is then a member of an assembly, in which the art of speaking, the art of reasoning, and that of judging, becomes absolutely necessary. ”

“ But, in order to succeed, natural abilities require the assistance of art; and though the knowledge of the art will never qualify a man for a speaker without a fund of good sense, yet good sense joined to art is of infinitely greater weight and efficacy than when it stands by itself, unassisted and unattended by art. ”

“ The passions of the Romans for their country led them not to be confined to the study of arms, or the immediate arts of government, in order to make her great and powerful. They found the means of drawing the whole circle of the arts within their favourite system of public good. None stood single and by itself, they all were connected with, they all terminated in the public. ”

“ It is from them that each species of eloquence has been derived; the rules contained in them are equally applicable to the practice of the senate, the bar, or the pulpit; they are equally fit for the many or the few; they teach how to reason as well as how to move, and to affect the head, as well as to touch the heart. ”

“ But it is impossible with any propriety to introduce my great author to the public in the following translation, without at the same time acquainting the world with the motives, I had almost said, with the necessity, of the present undertaking.
Men of learning are divided with regard to the merit of translations in general; I shall not pretend to decide upon either side; but I will venture to say, that if the present taste in learning should gain ground, this nation will soon have no other means left of being acquainted with the good sense of the ancients, but through translations. ”

“ I am as sensible as this is a trading nation, that the education which most tends to qualify young gentlemen to support the interests of their country, which undoubtedly lies in commerce, is most to be pursued; but at the same time the nature of our government and constitution demands that gentlemen of property be conversant in other studies ”

“ The reader may judge from this what prodigious advantages the practice of eloquence gave to the citizens of Rome; and how almost impossible it was, unless a man rose by arms, to get either power, reputation, or riches, but by means of this art.
As to the effect which eloquence had in the decision of cases as to life or death, these but seldom happened. Capital cases did not, as now, always affect the life of the party, but every case that affected his liberty, or reputation, was capital. By the Roman laws this was often the consequence of civil actions ”

“ After what I have observed upon the importance of eloquence in the Roman republic the reader will not be surprised that our author has in their own persons brought in men of the greatest dignity in the state, as canvassing the subtleties and niceties of this art, and that in a manner which has ever since been confined to schools and academies. ”