Quotes About Rhetoric

Philosophers who relied on rhetoric have become the sophists' best admirers.

Those who listened to the teachings of Socrates became the best philosophers. But those who studied under Plato, relied more on the rhetorical path and therefore, the greatest opportunists.

We know, for instance, that Americans have forcefully resisted extending the right to vote; those in power have disenfranchised blacks, women, and the poor in myriad ways. We know, too, that women historically have had fewer civil protections than corporations. Instead of a thoroughgoing democracy, Americans have settled for democratic stagecraft: high-sounding rhetoric, magnified, and political leaders dressing down at barbecues or heading out to hunt game.

Instead of a thoroughgoing democracy, Americans have settled for democratic stagecraft.

Wars are battles of words, not just bullets. From 1861, the Confederacy had the task of demonizing its foe as debased, abnormal, and vile. Southerners had to make themselves feel viscerally superior, and to convince themselves that their very existence depended on the formation of a separate country, free of Yankees.

Tugwell had no patience for the illusion of democracy, or the pretense of being a man of the people, or the empty rhetoric of equal opportunity.

This was the Bad Science strategy in a nutshell: plant complaints in op-ed pieces, in letters to the editor, and in articles in mainstream journals to whom you'd supplied the "facts," and then quote them as if they really were facts. Quote, in fact, yourself. A perfect rhetorical circle. A mass media echo chamber of your own construction.

It is astonishing what power words have over men.

Tod didn't laugh at the man's rhetoric. He knew it was unimportant. What mattered were his messianic rage and the emotional response of his hearers. They sprang to their feet, shaking their fists and shouting.

Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Then he will talk—good gods! how he will talk!

We may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology as the field of expertise over which a politician must have competent control.

And in its absence, what possible interest could there be in a list of what the President says now and what he said then?

La aparición en la arena política del asesor de imagen y el simultáneo declive del redactor de discursos atestiguan el hecho de que la televisión demanda un contenido que difiere del exigido por los otros medios. No se puede hacer filosofía política en televisión porque su forma conspira contra el contenido.

Al lector se le exigirá que asuma una actitud imparcial y objetiva. Esto incluye su aporte a la tarea de lo que Bertrand Russell denominó la "inmunidad a la elocuencia", que significa que el lector es capaz de distinguir entre el placer sensual, el encanto, o el tono insinuante (si lo hubiere) de las palabras y la lógica de su argumento.

Lincoln-Douglas debates may be described as expository

All the political name-calling and putting blame on immigrants.

In every election in American history both parties have their cliches. The party that has the cliches that ring true wins.

Nicholas Guild

If she used weapons the way she used words, no one would stand against her; they'd have no idea where the stroke would fall next.

Het volkse verwarren met het democratische is de strategie van de democraat.

Probablemente en otras épocas abundaron las porquerías tanto como en la nuestra, pero en ninguna tuvieron los discursos que las justifican y alaban popularidad semejante.

The effect of democratic rhetoric on taste is called disgust.

The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society.