Ben Rhodes Quotes

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

It really is true that an orator is simply a good man who speaks well.

Part of politics is redundancy. You’ve got to say the same thing over and over even if you get tired of it…not everyone has heard it.

Rhetoric matters, but at the end of the day policy matters more.

I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words.

The writing is all done, so it's all about verbalizing everything from point A to point B, and certainly there's a bit of politics involved, so it's a different thing.

When I speak it is in order to be heard.

Music and politics are in essence about communication. Without over-stretching the analogy I do feel a sense of rhythm is important in getting your message across.

Success depends on three things: who says it, what he says, how he says it; and of these three things, what he says is the least important.

Part of politics is redundancy. You just have to repeat things sometimes because not everyone has heard your message.

We must be careful about speech writers making foreign policy.

Kennedy understood something that is not so obvious, and that is that words are more important than deeds. You can’t govern 300 million people—or 180 million when Kennedy was president—by doing things. You can only do it by rhetoric.

Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.

Political speeches are a particularly low form of rhetoric.

Radio affords you the opportunity to pontificate and elaborate extensively.

Barack Obama's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences.

It is my custom to keep on talking until I get the audience cowed.

You can say anything if enough people will listen.

Prends l'e loquence et tords-lui son cou! Take eloquence and break its neck!

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.

When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he answered, "Action," and which was the second, he replied, "action," and which was the third, he still answered "Action.

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

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

It is sometimes hard to know what Sarah Palin means, just on a day to day basis. Sometimes it is hard to follow what she is talking about.

Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.