Jon Lovett Quotes

In oratory the will must predominate.

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

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

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.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

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.

In a world where audiences listen for attitudes rather than arguments or information, speakers must feel the pressure to posture rather than engage.

The more I read about the rules the great orators used, the more I realised, of course, this is how you stir people's hearts, and you persuade and cajole and move people out of fixed positions. The techniques are quite menacingly easy.

An orator is the worse person to tell a plain fact.

Debates require a lot of hard work and preparation. If you try to wing it, it shows.

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

Nobody has a magic lamp which can tell you in advance whether what you say will be effective in persuading an audience.

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?

Anything can go wrong in a debate, and Obama is not a perfect debater.

I wasn't a great debater.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

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.

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.

He who frames the question wins the debate.

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

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

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.

It is much better when a member resumes his seat after he has made a speech for the House to have the feeling that they wish he had gone on longer instead of wondering why he did not stop sooner.

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

A campaign appearance is judged much like that of an actor. Is the performance persuasive? Not what is said, and I find that too bad.