Quotes About Rhetoric

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?

Cicero had the men summarily executed, with not even a show trial. Triumphantly, he announced their deaths to the cheering crowd in a famous one-word euphemism: vixere, 'they have lived' – that is, 'they're dead'.

They create desolation and call it peace' is

They create desolation and call it peace' is a slogan that has often summed up the consequences

Where classical and medieval rhetorical pragmatism diverges from modern, I think, is in assigning a crucial role to a notion of common memory, accessed by an individual through education, which acts to "complete" uninformed individual experience.

for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.

Hell, we elected a demagogue last election in this country. People made some comparisons to Hitler.

Say as little as possible, hope some of the undecideds like your teeth better than the other guy's—that's usually the way this business works.

After eighteen long months covering this dreary business, the whole campaign appears in my mind's eye as one long, protracted scratch-fight over Internet-fueled nonsense.

Win or lose, Trump's campaign threatens to unleash the Great American Stupid S

The party worked the cattle in their pen into such a dither that now they won't rest until they get the giant wall that real-life, as-seen-on-TV billionaire Donald Trump promises will save them from all those measles-infected rapists pouring over the border. Not

The only candidate to really escape Trump's wrath has been Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and that's because Cruz has spent the entire political season nuzzling Trump's ankles, praising the Donald like a lovesick cellmate. The Texas senator, whose rhetorical schtick is big doses of Tea Party crazy (his best line was that Obama wanted to bring "expanded Medicaid" to ISIS)

In his book, Cohen referenced an old joke: What do pro wrestling and the U.S. Senate have in common? Both are dominated by overweight white guys pretending to hurt each other. He said, "The intellectual level of cable news is one step above pro wrestling." Cohen wrote that over a decade ago. Today the news is at the level of pro wrestling. This is one reason we have a WWE performer in the White House.

As for the rest of them, God help us. Trump's continued success puts the onus on the field to try to out-crazy the frontrunner.

He rang'd his tropes, and preach'd up patience;Back'd his opinion with quotations.

The politician is an acrobat he keeps his balance by doing the opposite of what he says.

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.

Here was an American president adopting the language used by Adolf Hitler (the Nazis referred to the Lügenpresse, or "lying press") and Josef Stalin, who called the press "vrag naroda" (enemy of the people).

His supreme achievement in 1940 was to mobilize Britain's warriors, to shame into silence its doubters, and to stir the passions of the nation, so that for a season the British nation faced the world united and exalted. The "Dunkirk spirit" was not spontaneous. It was created by the rhetoric and bearing of one man, displaying powers that will define political political leadership for the rest of time.

Be a craftsman in speech that thou mayest be strong, for the strength of one is the tongue, and speech is mightier than all fighting.

Politics is the art of anesthesia.

Queen Elizabeth I has a fair claim to be the best educated monarch ever to sit on the throne of England. Apart from her mastery of rhetoric — demonstrated at Tilbury — she spoke six languages and translated French and Latin texts.

A política é a arte de mentir tão mal que só pode ser desmentida por outros políticos.

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.