Marya Mannes Quotes

The aim of the sculptor is to convince us that he is a sculptor; the aim of the orator, is to convince us that he is not an orator.

William Jennings Bryan is a much better orator than I am. I have to think.

Regardless of how lyrical or rhetorically gifted they are in conveying big ideas, any candidate can do a good job of giving a speech if the goal of a speech is more than just delivering it well but achieving some end, whether it's convincing people of some issue or persuading them about you as a person.

At the Oxford Union I'd never debated before but I gave it a go.

A lot of people ask me, did debating help me as a writer, and I honestly don't know.

I consider myself to be quite persuasive when I want.

No matter what stage of life you are graduating from or entering, learning how to build and state your case is something every person in the world should know how to do.

The legal profession, politics and acting are very closely tied: the whole point is to have an idea and get it across to a listener, whether it is one person or five thousand in a hall.

In oratory the will must predominate.

Look, I debate for a living so I don't need to learn any lessons from amateurs.

If only I was as eloquent as Demosthenes, I would have to do no more than repeat a single word three times.

I'm a better polemicist in prose.

Some politicians that I've seen have been brilliant with the public. They almost speak with the skill of an actor.

Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.

I wasn't a great debater.

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

Trust me, I have never written a speech in my life, and if I have my way, I never will.

The gifts of nature are necessary; but they are not sufficient to make a complete orator without art and study.

Great speech is impassioned; small speech cantankerous.

It lies deep in our habits, confirmed by all manner of educational and other arrangements for several centuries back, to consider human talent as best of all evincing itself by the faculty of eloquent speech.

Churchill has spent the best years of his life preparing impromptu remarks.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

You can make a successful run for political office without an especially thick resume, any exceptional talent for expressing yourself, a noteworthy education or for that matter a basic grasp of science.

I'm not good at throwing around rhetoric.

My dad wasn't the best speaker like a Bill Clinton, or a Henry Kissinger, but he had character.