Rhetoric Persuasion Quotes & Sayings

Thus rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong ... And so the rhetorician's business is not to instruct a law court or a public meeting in matters of right and wrong, but only to make them believe. — Plato

He did what good lawyers always do. He shifted his argument in the direction his audience was already going. — Jeffrey Toobin

My parents were married my whole life until my father passed away a few years ago. — Paul Rudd

A grain of real knowledge, of genuine controllable conviction, will outweigh a bushel of adroitness; and to produce persuasion there is one golden principle of rhetoric not put down in the books-to understand what you are talking about. — John Robert Seeley

Because of demagogues, rhetoric has a tainted reputation in our time. However, rhetoric is central to democratic governance. It can fuse passion and persuasion, moving free people to freely choose what is noble. — George F. Will

I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust. — Gorgias

If nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come, nothing is more harmful than an idea which is manipulated by motivated men. Rogues and crooks have ideas. So do ordinary folks. But intellectuals are meant to be a breed apart for the same reason rocks aren't gems. — Mohammad Badrul Ahsan

Means of succeeding in the object we set before us. We must make as it were a fresh start, and before going further define what rhetoric is. Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art. Every other art can instruct or persuade about its own particular subject-matter; for instance, medicine about what is healthy and unhealthy, geometry about the properties of magnitudes, arithmetic about numbers, and the same is true of the other arts and sciences. But rhetoric we look upon as the power of observing the means of persuasion on almost any subject presented to us; — Aristotle.

A good ruler has to learn his world's language, and that's different for every world, the language you don't hear just with your ears. — Frank Herbert

I'd like to tour, but again, to tour my music now would take a bigger band. — Kip Winger

There is no necessity for the man who means to be an orator to understand what is really just but only what would appear so to the majority of those who will give judgment; and not what is really good or beautiful but whatever will appear so; because persuasion comes from that and not from the truth. — Plato

I discovered that night (in his college's student politics) that an audience has a feel to it, and, in the parlance of the theater, that audience and I were together. — Ronald Reagan

One can indeed try to obtain a particular result either by the use of violence or by speech aimed at securing the adherence of minds. It is in terms of this alternative that the opposition between spiritual freedom and constraint is most clearly seen. The use of argumentation implies that one has renounced resorting to force alone, that value is attached to gaining the adherence of one's interlocutor by means of reasoned persuasion, and that one is not regarding him as an object, but appealing to his free judgment. Recourse to argumentation assumes the establishment of a community of minds, which, while it lasts, excludes the use of violence. — Chaim Perelman

In spite of his Cold War credentials, Kennedy still believed in the power of words. — Stephen L. Carter

They were interchangeable tools, and the catchy phrases continued without abatement. — Robert A. Caro

But the art of sophistry, which the Greeks cultivated, is a fantastic power, which makes false opinions like true by means of words. For it produces rhetoric in order to persuasion, and disputation for wrangling. These arts, therefore, if not conjoined with philosophy, will be injurious to every one. — Clement Of Alexandria

She looked pretty lively for a girl obsessed with death. — Marlene Perez

Rhetoric then may be defined as the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever. — Aristotle.

Anything to do with persuasion is rhetoric, right down to the argumentum ad baculum, which means threatening somebody with a stick until they agree with you. — Mark Forsyth

It is thus evident that Rhetoric does not deal with any one definite class of subjects, but, like Dialectic, [is of general application]; also, that it is useful; and further, that its function is not so much to persuade, as to find out in each case the existing means of persuasion. — Aristotle.

A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul. — Therese De Lisieux

But let me tell ya, spend every day living only for yourself, every day indulging in little sins that aren't that big of a deal, and one day I may be showing you the ropes in hell. Amen. — Victoria Scott

The art of oratory was considered part of the equipment of a statesman. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Again, it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. And if it be objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against all good things except virtue, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly. — Aristotle.

When (an advocate) is not thoroughly acquainted with the real strength and weakness of his cause, he knows not where to choose the most impressive argument. When the mark is shrouded in obscurity, the only substitute for accuracy in the aim is in the multitude of the shafts. — John Quincy Adams

First doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. We must never allow doubt to hold us prisoner and keep us from the divine love, peace, and gifts that come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

You are the reality.
The sense of of worship, love, devotion and loyalty.
You are the purpose of life and existence.
That is why I am still alive. — M.F. Moonzajer

Lyndon Johnson's sentences were the sentences of a man with a remarkable gift for words, not long words but evocative, of a man with a remarkable gift for images, homey images of a vividness that infused the sentences with drama. — Robert A. Caro

I had escaped the snare of certitude that I welcomed so avidly at first and entered, via the name of Jesus, the wide and comprehensive company of Jesus. — Eugene H. Peterson

In book two of his Rhetoric,2 Aristotle identified and explained three means of persuasion that a speaker may use: logos, pathos, and ethos. Logos is the logical argumentation and patterns of reasoning used to effect persuasion. Pathos includes the emotional involvement of both the speaker and the audience as they achieve persuasion. Ethos refers to the character of the speaker — R. Larry Overstreet

Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is meaning. — Kenneth Burke

Frankl hypothesized that we have three parts to our nature: — Stephen R. Covey

The woman had told the truth. The flowers were the color of sunset. And not the yellowish tinge of a lazy sun either, but the intense orange of a sun refusing to set on anyone else's terms. — Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art. — Aristotle.

In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs. — William Osler

I would like to get out to the region in the Caspian sea. I would like to go there. I would like to get to Darfur. I would like to get to Khartoum in Northern Sudan. I would like to get to Zimbabwe. I would like to go back to North Korea, if I could. I would like to go to Yemen. I would like to get to Kashmir. Most of those destinations I will get to. — Henry Rollins