Quotes About Rhetoric

Politics is the art of saying well that which may or may not be true.

What I hope we will see from [Donald] Trump very quickly is inclusive rhetoric and rhetoric that brings the temperature down and comforts people so that children feel safe going to school.

Hitler showed the evil that could be done by the art of rhetoric. Churchill showed how it could help to save humanity.

Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.

A republican stands up in congress and says 'I GOT A REALLY BAD IDEA!!' and the democrat stands up after him and says 'AND I CAN MAKE IT SHITTIER!!

Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation.

By way of personal instinct, I have an inherent distaste for grandiose rhetorical statements, which don't have any substantive dimension to them

We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself.

A lot of times in the rhetoric, people forget the facts. And the facts are that thousands of small businesses-Hispanically owned or otherwise-pay taxes at the highest marginal rate.

He adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon, by the most splendid eloquence.

That which offends the ear will not easily gain admission to the mind.

So you know, I think that the federal government, the Democrats, and President Obama are selling a lot of hope and change, but no delivery of any of those promises.

This is the core claim of populism: only some of the people are really the people. Think of Nigel Farage celebrating the Brexit vote by claiming that it had been a "victory for real people" (thus making the 48 percent of the British electorate who had opposed taking the UK out of the European Union somehow less than real—or, put more directly, questioning their status as proper members of the political community).

With heightened tensions at home and abroad, he had a weak track record on both fronts. Soaring rhetoric was one thing, but when it came to policy, he had floundered. From the Bay of Pigs fiasco to his window dressing on civil rights, his presidency lacked any significant accomplishment.

People align their actions with implicit incentives, not official rhetoric.

if Clinton's answers come off as well-intended lectures, Obama is offering soaring sermons and generational opportunity. In 1960, the articulate Adlai Stevenson compared his own oratory unfavorably with John F. Kennedy's. Do you remember, Stevenson said, that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke,' but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said, 'Let us march.' At this hour, Obama is the Democrats' Demosthenes.

If you disagreed with him politically, he usually implied that you were a pervert or a foreign agent of some kind. Many of his listeners loved to hear the other callers debased. They were the sort of listeners who spent a lot of time in front of their TVs watching professional wrestling.

Abraham Lincoln on October 1, 1858, less than four months after his famous "House Divided" speech.

Arguing from facts never wins a definitive victory against skillfully presented opinion.

Elections are supposed to be political occasions. In fact the opposite is true. The last thing politicians want to talk about at election-time is politics. What they want to talk about is votes. And the less you talk about politics, the more votes you're likely to win - otherwise you might offend someone.

To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives.

of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say Gentlemen to the person with whom he is conversing.

Political speeches are like steer horns. A point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between.