Quotes about Rhetoric

When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.

Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing.

If you can't convince them, confuse them.

When I hear things like 'unpatriotic,' I just chalk it up to a lot of political rhetoric.

the rhetorical formulas of objurgation with which I was to begin a page of inquiries of you: whether you were dead

Politics is a literal game. Every word must represent a strict view - or be so abstract as to be meaningless.

Karl Barth imagined the Christian theologian in the role of John the Baptist in the painting of Matthias Grünewald: he is standing to the side of the cross, holding the open Hebrew Scriptures in one hand and pointing with a finger of the other to the crucified Christ.67 A theologian ought to draw attention to the way of life and to the one who originally embodied it, not to the intellectual prowess, fertile imagination, or dazzling rhetoric of the theologian.

we want to know not merely what his propositions are, but also why he thinks we should be persuaded to accept them.

Lawyers spend a great deal of time shovelling smoke.

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."

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

Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation.