WIST Quotations

Marlowe, Christopher -- Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1, Act 1, sc. 2 (1586-1587)

Dave — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 20:04:13 +0000

TAMBURLAINE: Then shall we fight courageously with them?
Or look you I should play the orator?

TECHELLES: No; cowards and faint-hearted runaways
Look for orations when the foe is near:
Our swords shall play the orators for us.

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (1564-1593) English dramatist and poet
Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1, Act 1, sc. 2 (1586-1587)
(Source)

More on Timur (Tamerlane, Tamburlaine).

Cicero, Marcus Tullius -- Epistulae ad Atticum [Letters to Atticus], Book 14, Letter 20, sec. 3 (14.20.3) (44 BC) [tr. Shuckburgh (1900), # 724]

Dave — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 16:05:48 +0000

No one, whether poet or orator, ever yet thought anyone else better than himself. This is the case even with bad ones.

[Nemo umquam neque poëta neque orator fuit, qui quemquam meliorem quam se arbitraretur. Hoc etiam malis contingit.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Epistulae ad Atticum [Letters to Atticus], Book 14, Letter 20, sec. 3 (14.20.3) (44 BC) [tr. Shuckburgh (1900), # 724]
(Source)

At Atticus' suggestion that Cicero write a speech for Brutus to give before the people of Rome. Cicero goes on to suggest this will be even more true for someone gifted and erudite, like Brutus, whose oratorical tastes and style are different from Cicero's.

(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:

There has never yet been either a poet or an orator who did not consider himself the greatest in the world.
[ed. Harbottle (1906)]

No one, whether poet or orator, ever thought anyone better than himself. This is so even in the case of bad ones.
[tr. Windstedt (Loeb) (1913)]

There never was a poet or an orator who thought any one better than himself.
[tr. McKinlay (1926), # 104]

There was never a poet or orator yet who thought anyone better than himself. This applies even to the bad ones.
[tr. Shackleton Bailey (1968)]

Cicero, Marcus Tullius -- Brutus, sec. 42 (46 BC)

Dave — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 17:56:41 +0000

Indeed rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly.

[Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut aliquid dicere possint argutius.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Brutus, sec. 42 (46 BC)

Alt. trans.:

"Orators are indeed permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly."
"For it is the privilege of rhetoricians to exceed the truth of history, that they may have an opportunity of embellishing the fate of their heroes." [tr. Jones (1776)]
"Fabrication's certainly allowed when practitioners of rhetoric write history, to frame a point more cleverly." [tr. Kaster (2020)]

Tacitus -- “A Dialogue on Oratory,” sec. 13, Dialogus, Agricola, Germania

Dave — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:55:24 +0000

Let the sweet Muses lead me to their soft retreats, their living fountains, and melodious groves, where I may dwell remote from care, master of myself … let me no more be seen in the wrangling forum, a pale and odious candidate for precarious fame … let me live free from solicitude … and when nature shall give the signal to retire may I possess no more than I may bequeath to whom I will. At my funeral let no token of sorrow be seen, no pompous mockery of woe. Crown me with chaplets; strew flowers on my grave, and let my friends erect no vain memorial to tell where my remains are lodged.

Tacitus (c.56-c.120) Roman historian, orator, politician [Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
“A Dialogue on Oratory,” sec. 13, Dialogus, Agricola, Germania

In The Works of Tacitus, Oxford trans., rev., vol. 2, (1854). The above is the version read at the funeral for Justice Hugo Black. The printed version differs in reading, at the start, "Me let the sweet Muses lead," and in using "anxious" for "odious."

Alt trans. (Peterson (1914)): "As for myself, may the 'sweet Muses,' as Virgil says, bear me away to their holy places where sacred streams do flow, beyond the reach of anxiety and care, and free from the obligation of performing each day some task that goes against the grain. May I no longer have anything to do with the mad racket and the hazards of the forum, or tremble as I try a fall with white-faced Fame. I do not want to be roused from sleep by the clatter of morning callers or by some breathless messenger from the palace; I do not care, in drawing my will, to give a money-pledge for its safe execution through anxiety as to what is to happen afterwards; I wish for no larger estate than I can leave to the heir of my own free choice. Some day or other the last hour will strike also for me, and my prayer is that my effigy may be set up beside my grave, not grim and scowling, but all smiles and garlands, and that no one shall seek to honour my memory either by a motion in the senate or by a petition to the Emperor."