Book 10
1.36
But we must use the same critical caution in studying the philosophers that we require in reading history or poetry; that is to say, we must bear in mind that, even when we are dealing with the same subjects, there is a wide difference between forensic disputes and philosophical discussions, between the law-courts and the lecture-room, between the precepts of theory and the perils of the bar.
1.37
Most of my readers will, I think, demand that, since I attach so much importance to reading, I should include in this work some instructions as to what authors should be read and what their special excellences may be. To do this in detail would be an endless task.
1.38
Remember that Cicero in his Brutus, after writing pages and pages on the subject of Roman orators alone, says nothing of his own contemporaries with the exception of Caesar and Marcellus. What limit, then, would there be to my labours if I were to attempt to deal with them and with their successors and all the orators of Greece as well?
1.39
No, it was a safer course that Livy adopted in his letter to his son, where he writes that he should read Cicero and Demosthenes and then such orators as most resembled them. Still,
