Who then can reproach me or who has
 any right to be angry with me, if I allow myself as much time for the cultivation of these
 studies as some take for the performance of their own business, or for celebrating days of
 festival and games, or for other pleasures, or even for the rest and refreshment of mind and
 body, or as others devote to early banquets, to playing at dice, or at ball? And this ought to
 be permitted to me, because by these studies my power of speaking and those faculties are
 improved, which, as far as they do exist in me, have never been denied to my friends when they
 have been in peril. And if that ability appears to any one to be but moderate, at all events I
 know whence I derive those principles which are of the greatest value. For if I had not persuaded myself from my youth upwards, both by the precepts
 of many masters and by much reading, that there is nothing in life greatly to be desired, except
 praise and honour, and that while pursuing those things all tortures of the body, all dangers of
 death and banishment are to be considered but of small importance, I should never have exposed
 myself, in defence of your safety, to such numerous and arduous contests, and to these daily
 attacks of profligate men. But all books are full of such precepts, and all the sayings of
 philosophers, and all antiquity is full of precedents teaching the same lesson; but all these
 things would lie buried in darkness, if the light of literature and learning were not applied to
 them. How many images of the bravest men, carefully elaborated, have both the Greek and Latin
 writers bequeathed to us, not merely for us to look at and gaze upon, but also for our
 imitation! And I, always keeping them before my eyes as examples for my own public conduct, have
 endeavoured to model my mind and views by continually thinking of those excellent men.