So much is acknowledged; and yet it is supposed that what good he has told us of himself is false.

If a man doubt of himself constantly; if in his most private intercourse and closest familiar utterances he admit occasionally his own human weakness; if he find himself to have failed at certain moments, and says so, the very feelings that have produced such confessions are proof that the highest points which have not been attained have been seen and valued.

A man will not sorrowfully regret that he has won only a second place, or a third, unless he be alive to the glory of the first.

But Cicero's acknowledgments have all been taken as proof against himself.

All manner of evil is argued against him from his own words, when an ill meaning can be attached to them; but when he speaks of his great aspirations, he is ridiculed for bombast and vanity.
On the strength of some perhaps unconsidered expression, in a letter to Atticus, he is condemned for treachery, whereas the sentences in which he has thoughtfully declared the purposes of his very soul are counted as clap-traps.
No one has been so frequently condemned out of his mouth as Cicero, and naturally.