Quotes About Rhetoric

Words are weapons, and it is dangerous . . . to borrow them from the arsenal of the enemy.

Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.

but he has never played the demagogue.

Because of demagogues, rhetoric has a tainted reputation in our time. However, rhetoric is central to democratic governance. It can fuse passion and persuasion, moving free people to freely choose what is noble.

When a politician, on a subject implicating science says, 'the debate is over', you may be sure of two things: the debate is raging, and he is losing it.

Lawyers spend a great deal of time shovelling smoke.

Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason.

Speeches are like steer horns - a point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between.

The recipe for a good speech includes some shortening.

Oratory is the power to talk people out of their sober and natural opinions.

Glittering generalities! They are blazing ubiquities.

The object of oratory is not truth, but persuasion.

What the orators want in depth, they give you in length.

When Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero 106-43 BC,) was in 64 BC running for consul of Rome he was reported to be advised by his "campaign manager" that the voters "had rather you lied to them than refused them."

The niftiest turn of phrase, the most elegant flight of rhetorical fancy, isn't worth beans next to a clear thought clearly expressed.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

Winston [Churchill] has devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches.

It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.

In an easy cause any man may be eloquent.

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.

Oratory: the art of making deep noises from the chest sound like important messages from the brain.

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

His speech was a fine sample, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call "rigmarole."

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.