Quotes About Rhetoricians

From real laws come real rights; but from imaginary laws, from laws of nature, fancied and invented by poets, rhetoricians, and dealers in moral and intellectual poisons, come imaginary rights, a bastard brood of monsters.

There is a difference between a lump-in-the-throat kind of blessing, and edification. A preacher who plays the emotional violin can make you feel good for a time, but at the end, what do you have? Nothing. As the ancient rhetoricians would have put it, nothing dries more quickly than a tear. An edifying preacher or teacher gives you a brick, and, when you get home, you know exactly where in the wall to put it. As a result, the structure goes up.

An intense rivalry developed between adherents of the Pléiade and those rhetoricians, classicists