Edward Algernon Fitzroy Quotes

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

In oratory the will must predominate.

Regan’s greatness as a rhetorician was in his delivery not in the content of what he said as with Churchill and Roosevelt.

A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail completely in the House of Lords.

Great speech is impassioned; small speech cantankerous.

Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested

Nobody wants to hear long speeches.

Making clever speeches takes a lot of work and a lot of time.

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

A campaign appearance is judged much like that of an actor. Is the performance persuasive? Not what is said, and I find that too bad.

I may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to the speech of Logan

Sustentative ideas are more important than applause lines. Substance makes speeches.

My basic rule is to speak slowly and simply so that my audience has an opportunity to follow and think about what I am saying.

Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.

The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent when most silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer along with his audience.

There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn thread-bare in all common hands; who can say any thing new or striking, any thing that rouses the attention, without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not (in his public capacity) honour enough.

The manner of your speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have ears to be tickled than understandings to judge.

It was my ambition all of my life to be master of the spoken word.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.

An orator is the worse person to tell a plain fact.

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

If only I was as eloquent as Demosthenes, I would have to do no more than repeat a single word three times.

I'm an orator, a raconteur.

The very best impromptu speeches are the ones written well in advance.