Richard Whately Quotes

You have to be aware of who you're talking to in an audience.

If our eloquence be directed above the heads of our hearers, we shall do no execution. By pointing our arguments low, we stand a chance of hitting their hearts as well as their heads. In addressing angels, we could hardly raise our eloquence too high; but we must remember that men are not angels.

You have to think not about what you mean but about what people hear.

[Louis] Brandeis is writing directly to us. His clear voice comes through a century and he's speaking to us and he's galvanizing us and he's persuading us. And that's why I love to read the prose.

William F. Buckley, Jr. does not so much speak as exhale, but he exhales polysyllabically, and the results are remarkable.

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

No matter what Hitler said, he spoke with a fine feeling for the particular circle which he addressed. ... He was a great psychologist.

To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.

Great men, like nature, use simple language.

I just don't think people get off on language anymore. Language used to be an elevated art. It used to be for people what music can be. But people don't learn to do that anymore, so eloquence is merely a matter of waste. Who needs a good vocabulary and proper English? Eloquence - it's dead and who needs it?

There's no right way. There's no measurement system. That's why, you know, art competitions are a little confusing to me. I mean, they're lovely, but so many people are affected by different people and different things in such different ways. And yeah, it's immeasurable.

When Gold argues the cause, eloquence is impotant.

Of true knowledge at any time, a good part is merely convenient, necessary indeed to the worker, but not to an understanding of his subject: One can judge a building without knowing where to buy the bricks; one can understand a violin sonata without knowing how to score for the instrument. The work may in fact be better understood without a knowledge of the details of its manufacture, of attention to these tends to distract from meaning and effect.

You, and you alone, decide what something means to you. Yet this is a decision that most people make based upon past feelings, experiences, understandings, or future fears. None of this has anything to do with what is going on right here, right now.

Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Eloquence, to produce her full effect, should start from the head of the orator, as Pallas from the brain of Jove, completely armed and equipped. Diffidence, therefore, which is so able a mentor to the writer, would prove a dangerous counsellor for the orator.

It is, as Mr. Rokesmith says, a matter of feeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of feeling!

If you want me to speak for two minutes, it will take me three weeks of preparation. If you want me to speak for thirty minutes, it will take me a week to prepare. If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready now.

In general, I think audiences are a lot smarter than people think. So, it's not "know your audience", it's "respect your audience, and really know your content".

My tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so my pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely put them better.

There's a power in words. There's a power in being able to explain and describe and articulate what you know and feel and believe about the world, and about yourself.

Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. If the writing is good, then the result seems effortless and inevitable. But when you want to say something life-changing or ineffable in a single sentence, you face both the limitations of the sentence itself and the extent of your own talent.

Thare is no chance of hurrying bussiness here like in the legeslature of a State thare is such a desposition here to Show Eloquence that this will be a long Session and do no good.

If a Million People See My Movie, I Hope They See a Million Different Movies.