Ron Fournier Quotes

The extra curricular activity in which I was most engaged - debating - helped shape my interests in public policy.

He who frames the question wins the debate.

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

Every candidate goes into every debate hoping that they can own a particular moment.

Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk.

I'm a fan of robust debate, and I'm not averse to engaging in the odd ad hominem attack myself.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.

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

In every debate, whatever the format, whatever the questions, there is one and only one way to identify the winner: Who commands the room? Who drives the narrative? Who is in charge?

I'm a better polemicist in prose.

I got my degree in rhetoric.

I spent most of high school working on the debate team, probably at some expense to my grades. Being a member of the team was great training in critical analysis, organization, and logic.

Debating clubs among boys are very useful, not only as affording pleasant meetings and interesting discussions, but also as serving for training grounds for developing the knowledge and the qualities that are needed in public life.

Facts are not liberals' strong suit. Rhetoric is.

There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I'll just put the stool out there and I'll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn't keep all of the promises he made to everybody.

Dick Durbin's a worthy opponent on any debate. He's very intelligent, quick. Knows his facts and puts them forward well.

I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama.

Obama's gift for delivering set-piece oratorical tours de force had special resonance to Americans fed up with a president who could hardly string two words together without a collision of syntax and whose idea of clever was the single entendre.

I know some people who never have any difficulties to speak of. The moment I understood your premisses, I felt sure you had a real foundation to hold on.

Obama has figured out the best method to prepare the way for his verbal Houdini acts: Use political noise as the tune-up din before the aria. Perhaps his body temperature is so low, it sometimes takes him too long to break out the song.

A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill-informed respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate, but speak he must; and if he is a man of talents, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully.

The purpose of oratory or philosophy [is to] respectively leave people in a fighting or thoughtful mood.

Each of the participants [in a Presidential Debate] has a major objective and a minor one, in addition, of course, to appearing presidential. The major one is to get his messages across even if the questions don’t ask for them. The minor one is to avoid seeming unresponsive. That is why you will see the debaters answer some of the questions quickly, leaving time for what the candidate wants to talk about.

Political speeches are a particularly low form of rhetoric.

I listen to my political rivals sometimes with fear and trembling, sometimes with awe, sometimes with near panic, but always with a curiosity of nuances, curiosity for the language, curiosity for the story behind the 'impossible' position.