Oratory Quotes

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

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

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.

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.

In oratory the will must predominate.

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

There is no true orator who is not a hero.

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.

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

The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.]

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

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

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.]

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.