Peggy Noonan Quotes

Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.

In oratory the will must predominate.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.

The writing is all done, so it's all about verbalizing everything from point A to point B, and certainly there's a bit of politics involved, so it's a different thing.

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

Talking and eloquence are not the same.

Some eloquence is like a magic.

I often begin a thought with spirit and finish it with nonsense. The chain of my argument often escapes me, and when lost can seldom be retrieved. These faults are so overpowering that I should sink into perpetual silence were it not that sometimes in ardor of debate, when my feelings are wound up to a high tone, elocution pours itself along with unusual rapidity, and I have passages which would not shame a good speaker; this is the only thing that makes me tolerable to others or to myself.

An orator is a man who says what he thinks and feels what he says.

I'm not good at throwing around rhetoric.

The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

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

I'm an orator, a raconteur.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

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.

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

If you're a preacher, you talk for a living, so even if you don't make sense, you learn to make nonsense eloquently.

Language is wine upon the lips.

I [Moses] am not a man of words.

word thrower … phrase maker

We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

I happen to have given lots of free speeches.

When I give a speech, I tell it like a story.