rhetoric Quotes

If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point and diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these... ...

We ought to be able to persuade on opposite sides of a question; as also we ought in the case of arguing by syllogism: not that we should practice both, for it is not right to persuade to what is... ...

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences-makes them, as the poets tell us, 'charm the crowd's ears more finely.' Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from... ...

In general, what is written must be easy to read and easy to speak; which is the same.

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

For it is not true, as some treatise-mongers lay down in their systems, of the probity of the speaker, that it contributes nothing to persuasion; but moral character nearly, I may say, carries with it the most sovereign efficacy in... ...

Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character ofthe speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the... ...

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.

A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.