[10]
Consequently the skilled
debater must be able to control his tendency to
anger; there is no passion that is a greater enemy
to reason, while it often leads an advocate right
away from the point and forces him both to use
gross and insulting language and to receive it in
return; occasionally it will even excite him to such
an extent as to attack the judges. Moderation, and
sometimes even longsuffering, is the better policy,
for the statements of our opponents have not merely
to be refuted: they are often best treated with contempt, made light of or held up to ridicule, methods
which afford unique opportunity for the display of
wit. This injunction, however, applies only so long
as the case is conducted with order and decency: if,
on the other hand, our opponents adopt turbulent
methods we must put on a bold front and resist
their impudence with courage.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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.