James Russell Lowell Quotes

Metaphors convince at once or not at all.

He steps on stage and draws the sword of rhetoric, and when he is through, someone is lying wounded and thousands of others are either angry or consoled.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.

Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.

The proverb answers where the sermon fails.

A good symbol is the best argument, and is a missionary to persuade thousands.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

Well, I am not 100 percent sure of the definition of polemic, but it wasn't meant to convince anybody of anything.

Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light.

I have written every one of my novels to convince somebody of something.

False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis.

Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

Rhetoric is cheap, evidence comes more dearly.

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

I often begin a thought with spirit and finish it with nonsense. The chain of my argument often escapes me, and when lost can seldom be retrieved. These faults are so overpowering that I should sink into perpetual silence were it not that sometimes in ardor of debate, when my feelings are wound up to a high tone, elocution pours itself along with unusual rapidity, and I have passages which would not shame a good speaker; this is the only thing that makes me tolerable to others or to myself.

Argument is conclusive … but … it does not remove doubt.

One of your jobs as a speechwriter is to transform the bureaucratic into the poetic.

Henry Clay's eloquence did not consist, as many fine specimens of eloquence do, of types and figures, of antitheses and elegant arrangements of words and sentences, but rather of that deeply earnest and impassioned tone and manner which can proceed only through conviction in the speaker of the justice and importance of his cause. This it is that truly touches the chords of sympathy; and those who heard Mr. Clay never failed to be moved by it, or ever after forgot the impression. All his [oratorical] efforts were made for practical effect. He never spoke merely to be heard.

I have found that there are moments when someone uses language that sears itself into the head [of the listener]. Those are the moments I look for.

We need to become more acutely conscious that words matter. None of us would deny that ideas and opinions matter, but we can sometimes be careless about how we express them. The words we choose to advance an idea, opinion, or point of view have a huge impact on how people react and respond to that view. When we use hyperbole, we increase the chances of being misunderstood and of promoting equally exaggerated counter-reactions, especially when people are reacting almost instantaneously.

Hyperbole engaged in consciously to achieve a desired effect can be, as we have noted, a useful rhetorical tool. Indeed, its use in this manner is sometimes called "exaggeration in the service of truth." However, there's much to be said for restraint of tongue and pen, and restraint refers not only to what we say but also to how we say it. It is possible, believe it or not, to be emphatic without indulging in overstatement; it is possible to be forceful without exaggerating.

Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason.

The pitch is the most important thing for us: not the words, not on paper.