Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1283
AUTHOR:
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
QUOTATION:
The art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest models for imitation;… I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic, taste, and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.
ATTRIBUTION:
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to David Harding, April 20, 1824.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 16, p. 30 (1904).
