Quotes About Rhetoric

The Greeks who rhapsodized about democracy in their rhetoric rarely created democratic institutions. A few cities such as Athens occasionally attempted a system vaguely akin to democracy for a few years. These cities functioned as slave societies and were certainly not egalitarian or democratic in the Indian sense.

Propaganda begins when dialogue ends. (Quoted by Marshall McLuhan in McLuhan Hot & Cool)

Daily we see how demographic change and uncertainty about what it means to be British is exploited by those with their own agenda; those who employ divisive rhetoric, engage in scapegoating and do nothing to tackle root causes of the insecurities people face.

That's the underlying tactic of the Obama administration in 2012: push the war on women, the war on the middle class, the war on gay people, and the war on Hispanics, and hope it will carry the day.

Few things give rise to imprecise rhetoric like the issue of race. It's understandable, but damaging.

I certainly know that the NDP and the Liberals talk about understanding climate science; they just haven't put forward anything that suggests they actually understand it.

Tell the lie over and over and over. It's an art that Trump understands well. There's no better evidence than his absolutely false claim that he opposed the Iraq War in 2002.

Today's misery is real unemployment, home foreclosures and bankruptcies. This is the Obama Misery Index and its at a record high. Its going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work - its going to take a new president.

It's a bit unfair to accuse Obama of dividing the nation when the facts show that it already is.

George Bush, Dick Cheney, every one of the speakers praised John Kerry's war record. No one said he was unfit. They said he has terrible judgment, and that's his record as a senator. Nobody questioned his military record.

the matter is as it is in all other cases: if it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice ...

State first, subject second, statesman last.

The populists are spreading slogans. We have to offer solutions and answers.

As a senator, Obama denounced the Big Brother provisions of Bush's post-9/11 Patriot Act, particularly its sections enabling the state to spy on Americans without their knowledge. After taking power, Obama acquired his other face. That face speaks far less, but when it does, it justifies Bush's policies.

If you listen carefully to Rick Santorum, he sounds more like Stalin than Pope Innocent III.

Left-wingers and right-wingers come together when they become extreme enough. The Nazi Party was called National Socialism, very similar to Stalin's Communism, with the addition of 'the Fatherland.'

At some point the rhetoric runs out, and we have to ask ourselves, 'Are we simply going to standby while somebody's rhetoric is good, but their actions are so lousy?' Are we going to stand up for that?

We must continue to step in and stand up to resist reckless rhetoric and actions in a peaceful and forceful manner.

If a Democrat took Republicans on rudely, they wouldn't be elevated in the Democratic Party. There's a different standard. We're supposed to be polite to people.

Standards are declining left and right, and it doesn't matter. It's whatever is necessary to prop up Obama.

. . . if [writing] lift you from your feet with the great voice of eloquence, then the effect is to be wide, slow, permanent, over the minds of men; . . .

Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors.

Surely: the adverb of a man without an argument.

A man will be eloquent if you give him good wine.