Richard Reeves Quotes

The capacity to persuade is an essential part of being a great leader.

To be sure, Kennedy did not discount the importance of words in rallying the nation to meet its foreign and domestic challenges. Winston Churchill's powerful exhortations during World War II set a standard he had long admired. Kennedy was hardly unmindful of how important a great inaugural address could be.

If you want to lead, you’ve got to have followers. You’ve got to align people, and you do that through television.

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

With my natural communication abilities, I could probably gather a crowd even without the Spirit.

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

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

I wish I could talk like Donald Trump or Steve Wynn. Hell, I'd love it.

A person of definite character and purpose who comprehends our way of thought is sure to exert power over us. He cannot altogether be resisted; because, if he understands us, he can make us understand him, through the word, the look, or other symbol, which both of us connect with the common sentiment or idea; and thus by communicating an impulse he can move the will.

I [Moses] am not a man of words.

Churchill has spent the best years of his life preparing impromptu remarks.

No ruler who lacks the gift of persuasion can stay in office long; it is the indispensable condition of government. It would be an idle illusion to assume that any government, no matter how good, could lastingly do without public consent.

I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got such a bully pulpit.

People appreciate and follow the person who can persuade them properly. Make that person you.

If leadership is about listening, the great political speeches would have been a little different.

Learning how to be persuasive has been really crucial to my life both professionally and personally.

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.

Eloquence shows the power and possibility of man. There is one of whom we took no note, but on a certain occasion it appears that he has a secret virtue never suspected - that he can paint what has occurred and what must occur, with such clearness to a company, as if they saw it done before their eyes. By leading their thought he leads their will, and can make them do gladly what an hour ago they would not believe that they could be led to do at all.

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

Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road.

I'm the American Winston Churchill.

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.

I think leadership is knowing what you want to achieve and then purposefully and sensibly taking steps to achieve it, remembering always that you have got to bring people with you if you are seeking to be a successful political leader.

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.