Quotes About Rhetoric

Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.

A lot was spoken but nothing was said.

The standard by which ideas are to be judged, Hitler says repeatedly, is not "abstract" considerations of logic or fidelity to fact. The standard is: usefulness to the Volk.

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!!

Olympus, of course not! If you are to be a politician, your natural medium is lying. Surely your agent has explained that?

Latin, the language of politicians, provides a fine medium for lies, malpractice, obfuscation and straight bamboozling. It's perfect for buffoons, inadequates and crooks.

A few pages in Mein Kampf are indeed worth reading, the pages, I mean, that relate to the orator and to the difference between the orator and the writer.

Hyperbole expands in societies where articulateness atrophies.

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

Who can wonder at the attractiveness... of the bar, for our ambitious young men, when the highest bribes of society are at the feet of the successful orator?

Politicians use economics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination. —variation on a theme of Andrew Lang (1910)

Those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder.

The bias of the headlines, the systematic one-sidedness of the reporting and the commentaries, the catchwords and slogans instead of argument. No serious appeal to reason. Instead, a systematic effort to install conditioned reflexes int eh minds of the voters -- and, for the rest, crime, divorce, anecdotes, twaddle, anything to keep them distracted, anything to prevent them from thinking.

Words are the most powerful of weapons if you use them properly - they'll cut through anything. But what's the good of that if the things you write about have no power in them?

I know words. I have the best words.

Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.

Grammar is politics by other means.

Despite its fascist government Greece entered the Second World War on the Allied side because Italy invaded what it thought was a target for easy conquest. Here was further evidence that, despite the rhetoric, rulers did not consider the Second World War to be a war between fascists and anti-fascists.

Politics, noun: [Poly 'many' + tics 'blood-sucking parasites']" ?—Larry Hardiman

Because in your political system, neither brilliance, nor even basic competence, seem to be prerequisites for getting elected to an office. Instead, the skills required seem to be popularity, and an ability to lie shamelessly with every breath, make false promises, and trash your opponents.

POLITICS (noun): Poly, meaning "many" plus Tics, meaning "blood-sucking parasites." —Larry Hardiman "I believe that any politician who comes to power, in part, through his skill in debate and public speeches, who is agile in handling questions at news conferences, with a glistening TV or radio image, has the conversational talents to be a natural liar." —Paul Ekman, Telling Lies

Europeans have been deflating the language of anti-fascism ahead of a time when they might need it.

A succession of philosophers and historians spent their time studiously attempting to say nothing as successfully as possible. The less that was successfully said, the greater the relief and acclaim. No attempt to address any idea, history or fact was able to pass without first being put through the pit-stop of the modern academy. No generality could be attempted and no specific could be uttered.

about cycling deaths in London written by a woman can be framed through the headline: 'Roads Designed by Men are Killing Women'.10 Such rhetoric exacerbates any existing divisions and each time creates a number of new ones. And for what purpose? Rather than showing how we can all get along better, the lessons of the last decade appear to be exacerbating a sense that in fact we aren't very good at living with each other.