[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances. … They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it."Rhetoric, fourth century BCE (BC)

It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences—makes them, as the poets tell us, 'charm the crowd's ears more finely.' Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions.

What makes a man a 'sophist' is not his faculty, but his moral purpose. (1355b 17)

Une chose, quand elle n'est pas excessive, est un bien ; du moment qu'elle est plus grande qu'il ne faut, elle devient un mal.

Le début de l'amour, c'est toujours lorsque non seulement on est heureux de la présence de la personne qu'on chérit, mais qu'on l'aime rien que de souvenir, quand elle est absente.

Il y a trois causes qui font que l'orateur persuade son auditoire, parce qu'il y a trois causes qui déterminent notre acquiescement, en dehors des démonstrations. Ces trois causes sont : la raison, la probité et la bienveillance.

Concluons donc qu'on est ami dès qu'on souhaite à un autre ce qu'on souhaite pour soi-même.

Even hackneyed and commonplace maxims are to be used, if they suit one's purpose: just because they are commonplace, every one seems to agree with them, and therefore they are taken for truth.

These are the three things—volume of sound, modulation of pitch, and rhythm—that a speaker bears in mind. It is those who do bear them in mind who usually win prizes in the dramatic contests; and just as in drama the actors now count for more than the poets, so it is in the contests of public life, owing to the defects of our political institutions.