24.2
Nay, he even went so far as to fill his books and writings with these praises of himself; and he made his oratory, which was naturally very pleasant and had the greatest charm, irksome and tedious to his hearers, since this unpleasant practice clung to him like a fatality. But nevertheless, although he cherished so strong an ambition, he was free from envying others, since he was most ungrudging in his encomiums upon his predecessors and contemporaries, as may be gathered from his writings.
24.3
There are also many sayings of his on record which prove this; for instance, he said of Aristotle that he was a river of liquid gold, Acad. Prior. ii. 38, 119. and of the dialogues of Plato that Jupiter, were it his nature to use human speech, would thus discourse, Brutus, 31, 121 (si Graece loquatur). Theophrastus, too, he used to call his own special delight. And when he was asked which of the speeches of Demosthenes he thought the best, he replied, the longest.
24.4
And yet some of those who pretend to be imitators of Demosthenes dwell much upon an expression which Cicero used in a letter to one of his friends, to the effect that in some parts of his speeches Demosthenes nods; but of the great and admirable praises which he often bestows upon him, and of the fact that those speeches of his own to which he devoted most labour, namely, the speeches against Antony, were entitled by him Philippics, they say nothing.
