Philip Massinger Quotes

Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.

I must say I'm not very fond of oratory that's so full of energy it hasn't any room for facts.

As a Shakespeare character, if you can persuade someone in a sentence or a speech, you've got it right.

In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.

Demagogues are so easy to identify. They gesture a lot and speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervour and god-fearing sincerity. Sincerity with nothing behind it takes so much practice. The practice can always be detected. Repetition. Great attempts to keep your attention on words.

The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.

I'm going to speak the truth when I'm asked about it. This isn't for look. This isn't for publicity or anything like that. This is for people that don't have the voice.

Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business.

There wasn't any more truth in over half of what any so-called orator said. If it wasn't a Deliberate Lie, why it was an Exaggerated Falsehood.

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

The nature of oratory is such that there has always been a tendency among politicians and clergymen to oversimplify complex matters. From a pulpit or a platform even the most conscientious of speakers finds it very difficult to tell the whole truth.

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

Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.

Obamas finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They dont even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves.

Like all virtuous people he imagines he must speak the truth.

Nothing in oratory is more important than to win for the orator the favour of his hearer, and to have the latter so affected as to be swayed by something resembling an impulse of the spirit impetu quodam animi or emotion perturbatione, rather than by judgment or deliberation. For men decide far more problems by hate, or love, or lust, or rage, or sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or illusion, or some other inward emotion aliqua permotione mentis, than by reality or authority, or any legal standard, or judicial precedent or statute.

Is it treason to say the truth? A bitter truth, but no less true for that.

Speaking with passion born of your own authentic experience and belief is always persuasive.

To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.

Once you get away from wanting to get paid, you can actually say some true things.

Swami Vivekananda: The genuine orator exercises a sort of hypnotism over his audience. I have listened to many orators, Indian, English and American; but Keshub Chunder Sen is easily the greatest of all.

The aim of forensic oratory is to teach, to delight, to move.

All I did was tell the truth. That's is what the whole show is about! And if Politically Incorrect has to go down for it, so be it!

To be an intellectual really means to speak a truth that allows suffering to speak.

Truth never hurt the teller.