Institutio Oratoria

For such backward glances place us at a disadvantage, because our search for our premeditated ideas makes us miss others, and we draw

But the crown of all our study and the highest reward of our long labours is the power of improvisation. The man who fails to acquire this had better, in my opinion, abandon the task of advocacy and devote his powers of writing to other branches of literature. For it is scarcely decent for an honourable man to promise assistance to the public at large which he may be unable to provide in the most serious emergencies, or to attempt to enter a harbour which his ship cannot hope to make save when sailing before a gentle breeze.

For there are countless occasions when the sudden necessity may be imposed upon him of speaking without preparation before the magistrates or in a trial which comes on unexpectedly. And if any such sudden emergency befalls, I will not say any innocent citizen, but some one of the orator's friends or connexions, is he to stand tongue-tied and, in answer to those who seek salvation in his eloquence and are doomed, unless they secure assistance, to ask for delay of proceedings and time for silent and secluded study, till such moment as he can piece together the words that fail him, commit them to memory and prepare his voice and lungs for the effort?