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amanuensis
Good word
Power brings a man many luxuries, but a clean pair of hands is seldom among them.
three basic principles of Stoicism—that virtue is sufficient for happiness, that nothing except virtue is good, and that the emotions are not to be trusted—three simple rules which, if only men could follow them, would solve all the problems of the world.
ANOTHER OF CICERO’S maxims was that if you must do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, for in politics there is no credit to be won by timidity.
Failure was the fuel of his ambition.
“It is perseverance,” he used to say, “and not genius that takes a man to the top. Rome is full of unrecognized geniuses. Only perseverance enables you to move forward in the world.”
The revenue collectors were a syndicate of well-connected men, of equestrian rank, operating under statutory protection, whose investors would certainly include some of the wealthiest senators in Rome.
timorous
Good word
elision
Good word
there are few blessings in life more onerous than the friendship of a great man.
“What convinces is conviction,” he used to say. “You simply must believe the argument you are advancing, otherwise you are lost. No chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win the case, if your audience senses that belief is missing.”
pate.
Good word
the surest way to a great man’s confidence, curiously enough, is often to speak harshly back to him, thus conveying an appearance of disinterested candor.
venal
Good word
sordid
Good word
imperium
Good word
megalomania.
Good word
sangfroid
Good word
peroration
Good word
Nowadays, of course, most senators employ a slave or two to turn out their speeches; I have even heard of some who have no idea of what they are going to say until the text is placed in front of them; how these fellows can call themselves statesmen defeats me.
preferment
Good word
aspirate
Good word
lecherous
Good word
salubrious
Good word
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”
agog
Good word
“These people,” Cicero complained to me one morning, “are a warning of what happens to any state which has a permanent staff of officials. They begin as our servants and end up imagining themselves our masters!”
anathema
Good word
acrimony.
Good word
portents.
Good word
equable
Good word
“The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than destroy one’s spirit by worrying about them too far in advance.
