Some one having said that he thought the chain-arguments of the philosophers seemed brief and curt, Zeno replied, "You are quite right; indeed, the very syllables ought, if possible, to be clipped."
Some one remarked to him about Polemo, that his discourse was different from the subject he announced. He replied with a frown, "Well, what value would you have set upon what was given out?"
He said that when conversing we ought to be earnest and, like actors, we should have a loud voice and great strength; but we ought not to open the mouth too wide, which is what your senseless chatterbox does.
"Telling periods," he said, "unlike the works of good craftsmen, should need no pause for the contemplation of their excellences; on the contrary, the hearer should be so absorbed in the discourse itself as to have no leisure even to take notes."
—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.20
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