Anna Quindlen Quotes

There is a truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

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

The imagination has its limits, and you have to face up to that.

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

Metaphors convince at once or not at all.

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

No matter what stage of life you are graduating from or entering, learning how to build and state your case is something every person in the world should know how to do.

The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem - new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones.

Persuasion is not a science but an art

One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.

Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic; since both are conversant with subjects of such a nature as it is the business of all to have a certain knowledge of, and which belong to no distinct science. Wherefore all men in some way participate of both; since all, to a certain extent, attempt, as well to sift, as to maintain an argument; as well to defend themselves, as to impeach.

Rhetoric is useful because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible. Further, in dealing with certain persons, even if we possessed the most accurate scientific knowledge, we should not find it easy to persuade them by the employment of such knowledge. For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction, but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible.

Truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by persuading.

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 ability to speak does not make you intelligent.

it wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short.

Wit gives an edge to sense, and recommends it extremely.

[M]ere knowledge of the truth will not give you the art of persuasion.

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

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

There should be in eloquence that which is pleasing and that which is real; but that which is pleasing should itself be real.

... even the most sublimely accomplished non-stop talker can't consistently please.

The limits of thought are not so much set from outside, by the fullness or poverty of experiences that meet the mind, as from within, by the power of conception, the wealth of formulative notions with which the mind meets experiences.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.