Children
Light and darkness
Plants
This world and the next
Fibers
We cannot distinguish between good and evil
We can understand good by avoiding evil
Good and evil are simultaneously alike and opposites
We can know evil only by knowing good
We can know good only by knowing evil
An indirect question
An analogy
Personification
Syllogism
A rhetorical question
Monasticism
Vice
Hypocrisy
Virtue
Trial
"cloistered" (line 21)
"race" (line 23)
"garland" (line 24)
"run for" (line 24)
"dust" (line 24)
An elective office
The prize of immortality
A circlet of laurel
A collection of poems
A fantastic ornament
No human is ever completely free of guilt
No human is wholly unfamiliar with vice and its temptations
The experience of life is like a trial in a court of law
It is experience, not innocence, which purifies humans
A child is innocent until he or she has experienced evil
By refusing to fight, we may achieve victory
A true verdict can be reached only after the careful study of evidence on both sides
Before we can win a victory, we must first be defeated
Humans are tested by their experience of conflict
What a court determines may well be wrong
Philosophers are unqualified to teach morality
Literature may teach better than philosophy
Comedy may be as effective a teacher as serious writing
The first function of literature is to teach temperance
Literature cannot take the place of revealed religion
An evil recognized and resisted
The heavenly rewards of the temperate
The sensual pleasure of literature
A state of pure innocence
The Garden of Eden before Adam
True virtue must avoid evil
Good and evil are interdependent
We must understand evil to be able to resist it
If we can avoid occasions of sin, we can overcome temptations
All men and women are equally susceptible to good and evil
Colloquial diction
Literary allusion
First-person pronouns
Metaphor and simile
Balanced compound sentences
Ethical argument
Personal anecdote
Extended definition
Abstract generalization
Reference to authority
An impartial observer
A cautious advisor
A skeptical commentator
A wry reporter
A dedicated partisan