Quotes About Rhetoric

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

Contrary to the utopian rhetoric of social media enthusiasts, the Internet often makes the jump from deliberation to participation even more difficult, thwarting collective action under the heavy pressure of never-ending internal debate.

You may be right that people say: 'You know what, we had Obama. He was inexperienced. The guy had great rhetoric, sounded good, looked good, but has turned out to be an utter disaster. I want someone where I have confidence and credibility that they're up to the job and that I can trust what they tell me.'

People used to complain that selling a president was like selling a bar of soap. But when you buy soap, at least you get the soap. In this campaign you just get two guys telling you they really value cleanliness.

In short, the problem is never the populist's imperfect capacity to represent the people's will; rather, it's always the institutions that somehow produce the wrong outcomes. So even if they look properly democratic, there must be something going on behind the scenes that allows corrupt elites to continue to betray the people. Conspiracy theories are thus not a curious addition to populist rhetoric; they are rooted in and emerge from the very logic of populism itself.

In addition to being antielitist, populists are always antipluralist. Populists claim that they, and they alone, represent the people.

A "crisis" is not an objective state of affairs but a matter of interpretation. Populist will often eagerly frame a situation as a crisis, calling it an existential threat, because such a crisis then serves to legitimate populist governance.

The danger to democracies today is not some comprehensive ideology that systematically denies democratic ideals. The danger is populism—a degraded form of democracy that promises to make good on democracy's highest ideals ("Let the people rule!"). The danger comes, in other words, from within the democratic world—the political actors posing the danger speak the language of democratic values.

The devious manipulation of sheep, otherwise known as politics.

from the television show,Evade the Question Time] At the end of the first round, I will award three points to Mr. Kaine for an excellent nonspecific condemnation, plus one bonus point for blaming the previous government and another for successfully mutating the question to promote the party line. Mr. van de Poste gets a point for a firm rebuttal, but only two points for his condemnation, as he tried to inject an impartial and intelligent observation.

THE UNANNOUNCED EMOTION: Don't advertise a mood. Invoke it

Rhetoric is the art of influence, friendship, and eloquence, of ready wit and irrefutable logic. And it harnesses the most powerful of social forces, argument.

Euphemism. A form of irony that makes bad things sound good—or at least not as bad. Personification. Pretending things are human: another role-playing trope. Kindergarten Imperative. Issues a command in terms of a personal need. Yogism. A foolishly wise expression.

It's a form of amplification, an essential rhetorical tactic that turns up the volume as you speak. In a presentation, you can amplify by layering your points: "Not only do we have this, but we also

CONCESSION: Concede your opponent's point in order to win what you want.

mayor orador de la historia, Marco Tulio Cicerón, quien propuso tres objetivos para persuadir a la gente, en orden creciente de dificultad:

Estimula las emociones de tu audiencia. Cambia su opinión. Hazla actuar.

La persuasión efectiva requiere interpretar las creencias y las expectativas, los valores y las emociones de tu audiencia. Puedes hacerlo cínicamente. Puedes usar la retórica para expresar tu punto de vista e incluso para cambiar el mundo. Pero con frecuencia el objetivo «es la gente, no las ideas», como dice David.

She sucks at her words as they come out. She seems to practise a constant fellatio on the words she pronounces.

Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.

You don't want to just do a joke because it works - we can make a lot of jokes work - you want to do a joke because it will hopefully build into an argument.

I think politicians know how to misrepresent data in order to support a political agenda. Politicians and the people that work for them - I should say - are expert at that.

Hillary Clinton's policies are bigoted because she knows they're not going to work.

It wasn't the first time. This happened to Dennis Kucinich. It happened to Jesse Jackson. They did it even to Howard Dean, creating the Dean scream. This is how they [democrats] work.