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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: shorter or longer is not to the point. No offence should be taken at
length, but the longer and shorter are to be employed indifferently,
according as either of them is better calculated to sharpen the wits of the
auditors. Reason would also say to him who censures the length of
discourses on such occasions and cannot away with their circumlocution,
that he should not be in such a hurry to have done with them, when he can
only complain that they are tedious, but he should prove that if they had
been shorter they would have made those who took part in them better
dialecticians, and more capable of expressing the truth of things; about
any other praise and blame, he need not trouble himself--he should pretend
not to hear them. But we have had enough of this, as you will probably
Statesman |
