Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
Some again settle on certain definite openings long before they have thought what they are going to say, with a view to using them as pegs for subsequent snatches of eloquence, and then after practising their delivery first in silent thought and then aloud for hours together, in utter desperation of providing any connecting links, abandon them and
The least unreasonable of them devote their attention not to the actual cases, but to their purple patches, in the composition of which they pay no attention to the subject-matter, but fire off a series of isolated thoughts just as they happen to come to hand.