Michel de Montaigne Quotes

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

Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratie, Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece, To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne.

Eloquence wins its great and enduring fame quite as much from the benches of our opponents as from those of our friends.

I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.

In oratory the will must predominate.

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.

I wish I could talk like Donald Trump or Steve Wynn. Hell, I'd love it.

All politicians are to some extent salesmen.

Some eloquence is like a magic.

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

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

Don't talk to me of your Archimedes' lever. He was an absentminded person with a mathematical imagination. Mathematics commands all my respect, but I have no use for engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.

Great speech is impassioned; small speech cantankerous.

There is no power like oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears, Cicero by . . . swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished; that of the other continues to this day.

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

Politics and acting are very closely tied. The job is to convince.

An orator is a good man who is skilled in speaking.

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

Natural politicians are skilled actors, recreating reality, adjusting and ad-libbing, synthesizing the scenes, saying the same thing over and over again and making it seem that theyare saying it for the first time.

Eloquence is to the sublime what the whole is to the part.

The subject is said to have the property of making dull men eloquent.

Eloquence shows the power and possibility of man.

There is nothing like oratory, it is a skill that can turn a commoner into a king.

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.