The difference between presentation and persuasion.

There were two great orators of antiquity. One was Cicero, and the other Demosthenes.

Plutarch drew attention in his Life of Demosthenes to the strong similarities between the personalities and careers of Demosthenes and Marcus Tullius Cicero:

The divine power seems originally to have designed Demosthenes and Cicero upon the same plan, giving them many similarities in their natural characters, as their passion for distinction and their love of liberty in civil life, and their want of courage in dangers and war, and at the same time also to have added many accidental resemblances. I think there can hardly be found two other orators, who, from small and obscure beginnings, became so great and mighty; who both contested with kings and tyrants; both lost their daughters, were driven out of their country, and returned with honor; who, flying from thence again, were both seized upon by their enemies, and at last ended their lives with the liberty of their countrymen.

Demosthenes (384–322 BC) was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by studying the speeches of previous great orators.

All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.

He who confers a favor should at once forget it, if he is not to show a sordid ungenerous spirit. To remind a man of a kindness conferred and to talk of it, is little different from reproach.

No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

The easiest thing of all is to deceive one's self; for what a man wishes he generally believes to be true.

The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.

A life of peace, purity, and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age.

A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.

Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.

All action is of the mind and the mirror of the mind is the face, its index the eyes.

If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.

As the old proverb says "Like readily consorts with like."

The Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero
By Plutarch
Written 75 A.C.E.
Translated by John Dryden

http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/d_cicero.html

When Cicero was done speaking, people always gave him a standing ovation and cheered, "What a great speech!" When Demosthenes was done, people said, "Let us march," and they did.

That's the difference between presentation and persuasion.