Two Books of the Elements of Rhetoric

and students are to be warned of this, that speaking well is one thing, and by far the most difficult of all human works. For he who will consider the magnitude of eloquence and the difficulty of the matter will understand that for one seeking this praise, the most intense study of all the greatest arts must be applied, and he will conclude that for the treatment of great and difficult causes in the Church and in the Republic, not only these Rhetorical little books, but perfect doctrine and great faculty, long domestic practice, and the sharpest judgment must be brought. It is profitable to insert these opinions into the minds of the young, for they cause them to think more honorably of the greatest arts, which I consider to be of much importance, and they sharpen the care for learning, and detain them in studies for a long time, so that they do not approach the Republic before their time and unprepared. Furthermore, Cicero himself warns of these things and similar ones very often in his books on Oratory. Wherefore we also said a little before that they would be profitable not only for eloquence but also for wisdom. Therefore, we desire to effect this principally by these little books of ours, that we may prepare adolescents for the reading of those best books. But I decided to dedicate them to you, since I sent the Dialectics to you before, so that by this very example I might warn students that these arts must be joined together, and that neither can be perfectly known without the other. And earlier