How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero Quotes

“If your proof is insubstantial, you might instead begin with a vehement refutation in the hope that no one notices your lack of argument. Since Plato’s Phaedo, and even a little before, the Western mind has been marked by deep divisions or dualities, such as soul and body, mind and matter, reason and sense experience, reason and emotion, reality and appearance, good and evil, heaven and hell. This binary thinking carries over to dialectic and rhetoric, in which it is often one thing or the other, rather than both or several or neither. Thus, in the Western mind, knocking down your opponent’s argument is tantamount to validating your own. Notice that the very concept of a debate with an ‘opponent’ is confrontational, when the exercise could instead be cooperative and conversational, as in the Upanishads.”
― Neel Burton, How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero

“Preparing an artful and persuasive speech is a great deal of work. For me, kairos is also a matter of whether to speak at all. You shouldn’t speak if: you have nothing worth saying; you are unsure and keep changing your mind; you are not the best or most qualified person to speak on this subject; you are speaking out of some deep-seated grievance; you are speaking only or mostly to further your own interests; speaking won’t make a difference. In his Ethics, Aristotle says that the virtuous or great-souled man (megalopsychos) ought ‘to be sluggish and hold back except where great honour or a great work is at stake, and to be a man of few deeds, but of great and notable ones.’ Remember that speech is a divine instrument. When someone goes around giving lots of little, loud speeches, you can be sure that they are an idiot.”
― Neel Burton, How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero

“In truth, it is not for the sake of our opponents that we are arguing or debating. Often, our opponents are in any case unpersuadable, regardless of the merits of our argumentation and the polish of our performance. Instead, our true aim is to carry the audience, whom we should look upon as our judge and jury. In the long run, it is not this or that person but only public opinion that can settle a debate.”
― Neel Burton, How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero

“In Hinduism, there is this notion that the word abstracts from the object, and that Brahman or God, being the ultimate abstraction, abstracts from the word. If reason and language are what separate us from the beasts, and bring us nearer to God, we should take care not to abuse the word. Those who speak only for themselves, or, out of spite, to make trouble and undermine the human project, ought to have the insight and the decency to shut up.”
― Neel Burton, How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero

“To be a good speaker, you need to be a good thinker. To be a good thinker, you need to be a good human being. And to be a good human being, you need to love the truth and the world more than you love your sorry self.”
― Neel Burton, How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero

“What a waste that so many who can think cannot speak, and so many who can speak cannot think, when, really, these two things ought to go hand in hand—or side by side, as they do in this book.”
― Neel Burton, How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero

“During the Second World War, the Free World’s most powerful weapon was not the atomic bomb, but Churchill’s rhetoric— while, by some accounts, it was through the mouth that Hitler shot himself.”
― Neel Burton, How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero

“Knowledge, as they say, is power. But words are how we use, or exploit, or share, that power. The greatest knowledge is the knowledge of knowledge, without which we would have nothing worth saying. But the second greatest knowledge is the knowledge of words, without which we would not be able to say it.”
― Neel Burton, How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero