Daily Inspiration Quote by Cicero

Cicero’s line is a dagger wrapped in courtroom etiquette: it sounds like a neutral observation, but it’s really an accusation about how power behaves when it runs out of reasons. “Abuse the plaintiff” isn’t just name-calling; it’s strategy. When facts don’t cooperate, you shift the jury’s attention from what happened to who’s speaking. You contaminate the messenger so the message can be ignored. The quote works because it compresses an entire political technology - character assassination as intellectual substitute - into one clipped imperative.

The specific intent is twofold. On the surface, Cicero is warning listeners how bad advocates operate: if you can’t win on law, win on vibes. Underneath, he’s also flattering the audience’s self-image as rational citizens. He assumes they want to believe they’re persuaded by evidence, not theater, while exposing how easily a crowd can be nudged by disgust, ridicule, and moral panic. The cynicism is calibrated: he’s not saying argument is pointless; he’s saying argument is vulnerable.

Context matters. Cicero lived in a late Roman Republic where trials were public spectacle, reputations were currency, and politics and prosecution were barely separable. Oratory was Rome’s mass media. So the “plaintiff” is more than a litigant; it’s any accuser, reformer, or inconvenient truth-teller. When elites feel cornered, they don’t always rebut - they delegitimize. The line survives because it describes a recurring maneuver: when logic fails, manufacture contempt.