Quotes About Rhetoric

However objective one's analytical approach may seem, [Some dude] argues, we must recognize the myth of objectivity as another rhetoric, another metadiscourse fashioning our sense of 'reality.' Although avant-gardism has long been believed to be a metafictional rhetoric displacing reality, we must not forget that it is a framework of reality that has been constructed rhetorically--whether its rhetoric is ontological or consumerist or creative-masochistic.

History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions.

I don't want to become a rhetorical speaker. My effectiveness is mastering all of the data and being able to respond.

In a world where audiences listen for attitudes rather than arguments or information, speakers must feel the pressure to posture rather than engage.

A good portion of speaking will consist in knowing how to lie.

Do people really want liberty, equality, fraternity? Is it not some manner of speaking?

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

When a president speaks, it's to multiple audiences.

We have demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum. It's not helpful. It's destructive. It's harmful. So, I don't like demagoguery whether it comes from the left, it comes from the right.

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.

I was on the speech team, we called it forensics.

You can't just give a speech and expect people to fall down and agree with you.

Reagan gave essentially the same speech from the beginning to the end of his political career, which was always, 'The American people are great, the government always screws things up, let's get the government out of the way.' On the foreign policy side it was, 'Communism is bad, and we're going to defeat it.'

A great speech is literature.

As a Shakespeare character, if you can persuade someone in a sentence or a speech, you've got it right.

I've decided to cut out the part of the speech where I say anything nice about Democrats.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

Obama isn't good off the cuff, especially when challenged; he is far better with a prepared speech.

If all our agents would abridge their speeches one half, I am satisfied the effect produced would be much greater. The 'art of leaving off' at the right time, and in the right place, is one of the most difficult things to learn.

If leadership is about listening, the great political speeches would have been a little different.

Nearly every politician plagiarizes their speeches, because nearly every politician has a speech writer do the work for them.

Political speeches might represent the ideas of the politician at hand, but often times, it's not written in their own words.

Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.