Quotes about Rhetoric

The orator persuades by moral character when his speech is delivered in such a manner as to render him worthy of confidence; for we feel confidence in a greater degree and more readily in persons of worth in regard to everything in general, but where there is no certainty and there is room for doubt, our confidence is absolute. But this confidence must be due to the speech itself, not to any preconceived idea of the speaker's character;

But all was false and hollow; through his tongue dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear the better reason.

No, I know all the war rhetoric, but it's all aimed at achieving peace.

how to structure a speech: introduction, three main points, peroration, and conclusion.

Why do we have to talk about it? Why? I never saw anything like this. Every time we're going to attack somebody we explain....

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

Demagoguery is the ability to dress minor ideas with major words.

Lincoln characterized Stephen Douglas's argument as a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse.

This is the rhetoric of the Spirit of God' he said, 'to extenuate evil things, and to amplify good things: if a cross comes to make the cross but little, but if there is a mercy to make the mercy great.

Rhetoric, which is the use of language to inform or persuade, is very important in shaping public opinion. We are very easily fooled by language and how it is used by others.

Gimmicks belong almost anyplace except a Republican presidential primary.

There are no techniques in politics.