[52] In truth, even our familiar and daily discourse will cease to have any coherence, if we are to spend all our time in word catching. Lastly, there will be no such thing at all as any domestic rule, if we grant this to our slaves, that they are to obey the letter of our commands, and not attend to what may be gathered from the spirit of our expressions. Must I produce instances of all these things? Do not different examples in each separate glass occur to every one of you, which may be a proof that right does not depend only on the strict words of the law, but that words are meant to be subservient to the intentions and purposes of men?
Pro A. Caecina. M. Tullius Cicero. Charles Duke Yonge (Translator). London. 1856.
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