Cicero on eloquence without wisdom
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Cicero Denounces Catiline, Cesare Maccari
In De Inventione (literally, On Invention), a handbook on oratory that Cicero wrote while still a young lawyer, he recorded this thought on good speech without wisdom and wisdom without good speech:
“Wisdom without eloquence does too little for the good of communities, but eloquence without wisdom is, in most instances, extremely harmful and never beneficial.”
It's worth considering both aspects of any proposals or arguments we make politically, and one has to wonder what Cicero would make of a world in which neither wisdom nor eloquence play a role in our public discourse.
