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Single Idea 20814

[filed under theme 19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric ]

Full Idea

How wonderful is the power of eloquence! It enables us to learn and to teach. We use it to exhort and persuade, to comfort the unfortunate, to distract the timid and calm the passionate. It unites us in law and society, and raises us from savagery.

Gist of Idea

Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery

Source

M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], 2.147)

Book Ref

'The Stoics Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B/Gerson,L.P. [Hackett 2008], p.76

A Reaction

[compressed] Cicero would have been well aware of the doubts about rhetoric felt by Socrates (and possibly Plato). Cicero was probably the greatest Roman orator.

The 20 ideas from 'On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum')'

20814 Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery [Cicero]
2645 Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero]
2628 Why would mind mix with matter if it didn't need it? [Cicero]
2627 I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero]
2634 It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero]
2635 The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero]
2636 Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero]
2638 Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero]
2640 We have the death penalty, but still have thousands of robbers [Cicero]
2641 Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero]
2647 It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero]
2650 If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero]
2651 God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero]
2652 Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero]
2653 If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, the whole universe must also be subject to it [Cicero]
2655 If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero]
2656 Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero]
2657 If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero]
2658 The gods blame men for having vices, but they could have given us enough reason to avoid them [Cicero]
2659 The lists of good men who have suffered and bad men who have prospered are endless [Cicero]