“The eloquent Lysias, posing as a non-lover, had concealed designs upon Phaedrus, so that his fine speech was really a sheep’s clothing. Socrates discerned in him a “peculiar craftiness.” One must suspect the same today of many who ask us to place our faith in the neutrality of their discourse.”

— Richard M. Weaver

“The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric,” p. 22.
The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)

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Richard M. Weaver 110

American scholar 1910–1963

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“Socrates: The disgrace begins when a man writes not well, but badly.
Phaedrus: Clearly.
Socrates: And what is well and what is badly—need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?”

Plato book Phaedrus

258d (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
paraphrased in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig: "And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good—need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
Phaedrus

“It is a very fine speech, Lysias, but is not suitable for me; for it was manifestly the speech of a lawyer, rather than of a philosopher.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Diogenes Laertius

“It is a new place to live and many new people to get to know, but one thing is always the same, and that is Jesus Christ. Our faith in Christ brings us through whatever we face and whatever he asks of us.”

Stephen D. Parkes (1965) roman-catholic clergyman

Siblings, brother priests, and now brother bishops https://osvnews.com/2020/08/17/siblings-brother-priests-and-now-brother-bishops/ (August 17, 2020)

“The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

No. 3 (Oct. 20, 1759).
The Bee (1759)

“To many, our democratic system seems so broken that they have simply lost faith that their participation could really matter. The politics of self-interest and catering to narrow special interests is so dominant that so many ask themselves: Why vote? … The political discourse is so formulaic, so tailored into poll-driven, focus-group-approved slogans that don't really say anything substantive or strike at the core of our lived experience.”

Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist

"Cornel West: Democracy Matters" in The Globalist (24 January 2005)

“The eulogy of the non-lover in the speech of Lysias … stresses the fact that the non-lover … does not commit extreme acts under the influence of passions. Since he acts from calculation, he never has occasion for remorse. … The non-lover demonstrates his superiority through prudence and objectivity. … We must now observe how these points of superiority correspond to those of “semantically purified” speech, … the kind of speech approaching pure notation in the respect that it communicates abstract intelligence without impulsion. It is a simple instrumentality, showing no affection for the object of its symbolizing and incapable of inducing bias in the hearer. In its ideal conception, it would have less power to move than 2 + 2 = 4, since it is generally admitted that mathematical equations may have the beauty of elegance, and hence are not above suspicion where beauty is suspect. But this neuter language will be an unqualified medium of transmission of meanings from mind to mind, and by virtue of it minds can remain in an unprejudiced relationship to the world and also to other minds. … Instead of passion, it offers the serviceability of objectivity … It distrusts any departure from the literal and prosaic.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric,” pp. 6-7.
The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)

“Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep's clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Morrison v. Olsen, 487 U.S. 654, 699 (1988) (dissenting).
1980s

“Today the devil as a wolf in supposedly a new suit of sheep’s clothing is enticing some men to parrot his line by advocating planned government guaranteed security at the expense of our liberties.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

“Our eyes must be upon the Lord, not upon His people. His means – not ours, not theirs, but His means are large; and to a faithful steward He will prove a faithful master.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 382).

“Our enlightened posterity will look back upon us who eat oxen and sheep, just as we look upon cannibals.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect"

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