Ian A Holcomb’s Reviews > The Art of Rhetoric > Status Update

Book One complete.

“Laws give authority to contracts, because they are drawn up in accordance with the laws; and that in general law itself is a kind of contract.”

Thought I was reading Hobbes for a second.

I mean that all political systems…are destroyed by both relaxation and rigidity. Democracy, for instance, is weakened not only when its principles are relaxed, so that it ends up as oligarchy…”

Aristotle is dropping so much truth I can’t believe my alma mater hasn’t banned him too.

“It is necessary that we have the ability to argue convincingly for both sides of a case. The point is not that we should actually argue both sides of a case, because we should not persuade people of anything wrong, but that we should be aware how things stand and should be able from our own resources to refute another person who is arguing immorally.”