Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

In oratory the will must predominate.

He steps on stage and draws the sword of rhetoric, and when he is through, someone is lying wounded and thousands of others are either angry or consoled.

Giving a true speech, a true, passionate speech, is old-school football.

A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory.

I think people should be angry at things that are worthy of anger. Injustice is outrageous and deserves outrage.

Some eloquence is like a magic.

A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker.

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

I think that indignation is pleasurable, and it's pleasurable because it's self-righteous.

In a strange way, Hillary Clinton was helped and victimized by Barack and Michelle Obama.Michelle Obama was probably better than Barack Obama, if you think about it.Her speech is a masterful, masterful speech. And she delivered it in a persuasively conversational tone.

All anger feels like righteous anger; sorrow does not care whether it is righteous or not.

Particularly the broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech.

Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state.

Righteous indignation: your own wrath as opposed to the shocking bad temper of others

The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.

I understand a fury in your words But not your words.

The talkative man speaks from his mouth, the eloquent man speaks from his heart.

If a man meets with injustice, it is not required that he shall not be roused to meet it; but if he is angry after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. The flame is not wrong, but the coals are.

In fact, anybody else who hears this [speech of Donald Trump in Philadelphia] is probably gonna be dutifully impressed with Trump's comportment, his presentation, his knowledge of this, and his temperament here. It's all a great package and looks good.

The speeches to be wary of are those that begin with I'm just going to say a few words.

A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage.

I realized that my righteous indignation was a form of entertainment for me. I loved getting pissed off at injustice. I didn't do anything about it, I just liked the feeling of being pissed off.

Speeches are more important in politics than talking points, as a rule, and are better remembered.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!

An effective speaker can do more damage or more good in a well-stated minute than an angry klutz could do in half an hour.