Oratory Quotes

The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

Next to fried foods, the South has suffered most from oratory.

When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he answered, "Action," and which was the second, he replied, "action," and which was the third, he still answered "Action.

The law of silence: Speak little. Say only what you must. Speak only when necessary. Your oratory should be deeds, not words. You accomplish: let others talk.

In oratory the will must predominate.

There is no true orator who is not a hero.

Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers, lacking--God warn us!--matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.

It makes a great difference whether Davus or a hero speaks.

Yet through delivery orators succeed, I feel that I am far behind indeed.

With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.

Its Constitution--the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.

The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.

Oratory is just like prostitution: you must have little tricks.

It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.

As poetry is the harmony of words, so music is that of notes; and as poetry is a rise above prose and oratory, so is music the exaltation of poetry.

Oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments and putting better in their place.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory

Hark to that shrill, sudden shout, The cry of an applauding multitude, Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields The living mass as if he were its soul!

ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

Whatever we conceive well we express clearly, and words flow with ease. [Fr., Ce que l'on concoit bien s'enonce clairement, Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisement.]

Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.

I don't have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

Those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are the loudest when least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of nature; she often gives us the lightning without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning.

Yet through delivery orators succeed, I feel that I am far behind indeed. [Ger., Allein der Vortrag macht des Redners Gluck, Ich fuhl es wohl noch bin ich weit zuruck.]

I must say I'm not very fond of oratory that's so full of energy it hasn't any room for facts.

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

The aim of forensic oratory is to teach,
to delight,
to move.

If you can't write your message in a sentence, you can't say it in an hour.

The ancients, who in these matters were not perhaps such blockheads as some may conceive, considered poetical quotation as one of the requisite ornaments of oratory.

Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.

Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business.

There is nothing like oratory, it is a skill that can turn a commoner into a king.

The simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.

The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.

The orator is the mouth (os) of a nation.

He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.

The greatest and truest models for all oratorsis Demosthenes. One who has not studied deeply and constantly all the great speeches of the great Athenian, is not prepared to speak in public. Only as the constant companion of Demosthenes, Burke, Fox, Canning and Webster, can we hope to become orators.

Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.

A speech should not just be a sharing of information, but a sharing of yourself.

The nature of oratory is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to oversimplify complex matters. From a pulpit or a platform even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth.

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

... women are more quiet. They don't feel called to mount a barrel and harangue by the hour every time they imagine they have produced an idea.

Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratie, Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece, To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne.

He has oratory who ravishes his hearers while he forgets himself.

Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory !!

Literary qualifications have no more to do with it than oratory has with salesmanship. One must be able to express himself briefly, clearly, and convincingly, just as a salesman must.

In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.

When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, 'Action, Action, Action.'