After serious and long continued reflection as
to how I might do good to as many people as possible
and thereby prevent any interruption of my service
to the State, no better plan occurred to me than
to conduct my fellow-citizens in the ways of the
noblest learning—and this, I believe, I have already
accomplished through my numerous books. For
example, in my work entitled Hortensius,1 I appealed
as earnestly as I could for the study of philosophy.
And in my Academics, in four volumes, I set forth
the philosophic system which I thought least arrogant, and at the same time most consistent and
refined.
1 Cf. August. Confess. iii. 4. 7 ille vero liber (Hortensius) mutavit affectum meum et ad te ipsum, Domine, mutavit preces meas et vota ac desideria mea fecit alia.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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