There is also another difference in the case of Plato, as I said. For Lysias, falling far short of him not only in the magnitude of his virtues but in their multitude, surpasses him still more in his faults than he falls short in his virtues. §1
What, then, did those god-like men see, who reached out for the greatest things in writing and despised precision in every detail? Among many other things, this: that nature judged man no humble or ignoble creature, but, leading us into life as into a great pageant and into the whole order of the cosmos to be spectators of all that is and most ambitious competitors, planted at once in our souls an unconquerable love for everything ever-great and (as related to us) more divine. §2
And so, for the speculation and reach of human attempt, not even the whole universe suffices: our thoughts often pass beyond the bounds of the surrounding world; and if a man should look round at life and observe how much of the surpassing, the great, and the beautiful is in everything, he will quickly know what we have been born for. §3
Hence we are naturally drawn, no, by Zeus, not to admire small streams, however clear and useful, but the Nile, the Ister, the Rhine, and far more the Ocean. Nor are we astonished at this our little kindled flame, since it keeps a pure light, more than at the heavenly bodies, for all that they are often darkened, nor do we judge it more wonderful than the craters of Aetna, whose eruptions cast up rocks from their depths and whole cliffs, and sometimes pour out rivers of that earth-born and self-burning fire. §4
But on all such matters we may observe this: that what is useful or even necessary is procured easily by men; what is wonderful, however, is always the surprising. §5