"Nothing is so difficult to believe that..." - Quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Nor am I ashamed, as some are, to confess my ignorance of those matters with which I am unacquainted.”

“Little by little old age renders the body less powerful.”

“There are two ways to resolve conflicts, through violence or through negotiation. Violence is for wild beasts, negotiation is for human beings.”

“Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praise, ye laurels.”

“Let arms yield to the toga, let the [victor's] laurel yield to the [orator's] tongue.”

“An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.”

“No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.”

“There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn thread-bare in all common hands; who can say any thing new or striking, any thing that rouses the attention, without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not (in his public capacity) honour enough.”

“Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.”