Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶43 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶43

Anger is in no wise becoming in an orator, though it is not amiss to affect it. Do you imagine that I am angry when in pleading I use any extraordinary vehemence and sharpness? What? when I write out my speeches after all is over and past, am I then angry while writing? Or do you think Aesopus was ever angry when he acted, or Accius was so when he wrote? Those men, indeed, act very well, but the orator acts better than the player, provided he be really an orator. But, then, they carry it on without passion, and with a composed mind. But what wantonness is it to commend lust! You produce Themistocles and Demosthenes; to these you add Pythagoras, Democritus, and Plato. What? do you then call studies lust? But these studies of the most excellent and admirable things, such as those were which you bring forward on all occasions, ought to be composed and tranquil; and what kind of philosophers are they who commend grief, than which nothing is more detestable? Afranius has said much to this purpose: Let him but grieve, no matter what the cause. But he spoke this of a debauched and dissolute youth. But we are inquiring into the conduct of a constant and wise man. We may even allow a centurion or standard-bearer to be angry, or any others whom, not to explain too far the mysteries of the rhetoricians, I shall not mention here (for to touch the passions, where reason cannot be come at, may have its use); but my inquiry, as I often repeat, is about a wise man.