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Single Idea 20814

[catalogued under 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)

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.

Book Reference

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