Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

The niftiest turn of phrase, the most elegant flight of rhetorical fancy, isn't worth beans next to a clear thought clearly expressed.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do: and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him.

My purpose in public address and in speech is really encapsulated in three C's: clear, concise, correct. No overblowing rhetoric or anything like that. As simple as possible: clear, concise, correct.

Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative.

The longer I live, the more I have come to value the gift of eloquence. Every American youth, if he desires for any purpose to get influence over his countrymen in an honorable way, will seek to become a good public speaker.

The orator is thereby an orator that keeps his feet ever on a fact.

Some of the greatest and most lasting effects of genuine oratory have gone forth from secluded lecture desks into the hearts of quiet groups of students.

Those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are the loudest when least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of nature; she often gives us the lightning without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning.

Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory !!

The air of the New World seems favorable to the art of declamation.

What the people call eloquence is the facility some persons have of speaking alone and for a long time, aided by extravagant gestures, a loud voice, and powerful lungs.

I know that one is able to win people far more by the spoken that by the written word, and that every great movement on this globe owes its rise to the great speakers and not to the great writers.

True eloquence scorns eloquence.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.

The ability to speak well is the shortcut to distinction.

A man will be eloquent if you give him good wine.

And I love to speak - I am very good at it. And if you love to do something, you're very good at it, and also you are paid well, why would you not do it? Why would you stop?

Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it.

The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy. Take common sense quantum sufficit; add a little application to the rules and orders of the House [of Commons], throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness and elegancy of style. Take it for granted that by far the greatest part of mankind neither analyze nor search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the surface.

Words were another sword for the man who wielded them well.

If it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice.

When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, 'Action, Action, Action.'

The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language.