[33]
It is also convenient at times to pretend that we have before our
eyes the images of things, persons or utterances, or
to marvel that the same is not the case with our
adversaries or the judges; it is with this design that
we use phrases such as “It seems to me,” or “Does
it not seem to you?” But such devices make a great
demand on our powers of eloquence. For with things
which are false and incredible by nature there are but
two alternatives: either they will move our hearers
with exceptional force because they are beyond the
truth, or they will be regarded as empty nothings
because they are not the truth.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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