[73]
They make the gravest mistake who consider that
the style which is best adapted to win popularity
and applause is a faulty and corrupt style of speaking
which revels in license of diction or wantons in
childish epigram or swells with stilted bombast or
riots in empty commonplace or adorns itself with
blossoms of eloquence which will fall to earth if
but lightly shaken, or regards extravagance as
sublime or raves wildly under the pretext of free
speech.
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.