Quotes About Rhetoric

If Algeria introduced a resolution that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.

Good editorial writing has less to do with winning an argument, since the other side is mostly not listening, than with telling the guys on your side how they ought to sound when they're arguing.

As Harry Truman used to say: "If you can't convince them, confuse them.

The more reasons we put on the table, the easier it is for people to discard the shakiest one. Once they reject one of our justifications, they can easily dismiss our entire case. That happened regularly to the average negotiators: they brought too many different weapons to battle. They lost ground not because of the strength of their most compelling point, but because of the weakness of their least compelling one.

A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.

I sometimes marvel at the extraordinary docility with which Americans submit to speeches.

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.

I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.

By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.

Propaganda must not serve the truth, especially insofar as it might bring out something favorable for the opponent.

Is Paris burning?

The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.

The scream of the twelve-inch shrapnel is more penetrating than the hiss from a thousand Jewish newspaper vipers. Therefore let them go on with their hissing.

I know that fewer people are won over by the written word than by the spoken word and that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great speakers and not to great writers.

The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than any other force. All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity either by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the people's midst. In no case have great movements been set afoot by the syrupy effusions of literary aesthete and drawing-room heroes.

È più facile ingannare le masse con una fandonia esagerata che con una piccola bugia.

O discurso de um estadista, falando ao seu povo, não deve ser avaliado pela impressão que o mesmo provoca no espírito de um professor de Universidade, mas no efeito que produz sobre as massas.

Most of my promos are straight out of Pat Buchanan's run for election.

My rhetoric degree ended up being very helpful in advertising. I got an internship and then figured I will be a copywriter; that will be my path.

Election time is when you start to hear about 'average people,' 'working families,' 'patriotic Americans' and such.

Of course the Liberal Democrats are going to say things to try and get attention - but I don't think the country is paying much attention.

The permanent campaign is inherently deceptive.

La démagogie est l'hypocrisie du progrès.

The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.