Quotes About Rhetoric

Biarkan mereka melaporkan, Sukarno tidak hanya bicara dengan mulut, tapi juga bicara dengan meriam dan sudah siap perang.

When I was growing up, it was 'communists.' Now it's 'terrorists.' So you always have to have somebody that's our enemy to be afraid of, so the war machine can build more bombs, and guns, and bullets, and everything (2005, Voices of a People's History of the US)

Het volstaat iemand ernstig te horen praten of ideaal, toekomst, filosofie, hem zelfverzekerd 'wij' te horen zeggen, 'anderen' aan te roepen en zich hun tolk te wanen - om hem als mijn vijand te beschouwen. Ik herken in hem een mislukte tiran, een beul bijna, even verfoeilijk als de tirannen, als de beulen van groot formaat.

Politician talk themselves red, white, and blue in the face.

The politicians were talking themselves red, white and blue in the face.

We need to think more about the nature of rhetoric in anthropology. There isn't a body of knowledge and thought to fall back on in this regard.

An aphorism can contain only as much wisdom as overstatement will permit.

The CCP seemed to be following a dictum attributed to Stalin: 'Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?

In Sartre's style of argument, German metaphysics met French sophistry in a kind of European Coal and Steel Community producing nothing but rhetorical gas.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

Recently his son was sent off to learn the art of public speaking, and the result is that, though he still lacks the command that makes for rhetorical sweep, he has become more interested in words if you take them one by one. Sometimes he seems to be holding them up for scrutiny. Sometimes he seems to be poking them with a stick. Sometimes, and the comparison is unavoidable, he seems to approach them with the tail-wagging interest a dog takes in another dog's turds.

peroration. He had left his opponents with nothing to say and nowhere to

From his [Nestor's] tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey.

He was born to be a senator. He never said anything important, and he always said it sonorously.

President Obama chose politics over leadership. 'Hope' and 'Change' have become bait-and-switch.

You were always uncomfortable with the rhetoric of emotion, which is quite a different matter from discomfort with emotion itself.

Principles aren't something you hear much from politicians these days. Have you noticed? Right across the board, leaders, whatever the political coloring, avoid talking about laws; they avoid talking about principles. They talk about 'our values.' But values can change, and all our packets of 'values' seem to be getting smaller.

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

The intersection of political analysis and Internet theory is a busy crossroad of cliche, where familiar rhetorical vehicles - decentralized authority, emergent leadership, empowered grass roots - create a ceaseless buzz.

The rhetoric is the key to the character. It's the verbal music of the piece.

Every president to hold office has espoused some version of Americanism - the truths that we hold self-evident, even when those truths are not always in evidence. But for all their grand rhetoric and mostly good deeds, none was able to seal the deal on the trifecta of equality, plurality and socioeconomic ascendancy. Obama has.

President Obama's version of America is a divided one - pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender, and social status. His policies have failed! We are not better off than we were 4 years ago, and no rhetoric, bumper sticker, or campaign ad can change that.

Winston Churchill had once told him, "An important speech should take an hour to write for every minute it took to deliver, while at the same time, dear boy, you must leave your audience convinced it was off the cuff." That was the difference between a mere speaker and an orator, Churchill had suggested.

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the "basket of deplorables." —Hillary Clinton, September 9, 2016