Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.

I could sway people with words—words that welled up within me.

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

In oratory the will must predominate.

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

Who does not delight in oratory? How we gather to hear even an ordinary speaker! How often is a jury swayed and controlled by the appeals of counsel!

It is true the orator may make a myriad replica of his own passion out of those who listen to him. But that does not prove he is right or they are not fools.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

Oratory is the masterful art. Poetry, painting, music, sculpture, architecture please, thrill, inspire - but oratory rules. The orator dominates those who hear him, convinces their reason, controls their judgment, compels their action. For the time being, he is master.

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

It was said that Mr. Gladstone could persuade most people of most things, and himself of anything.

Some eloquence is like a magic.

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

God and my dad gave me the gift of gab. I know how to finagle.

I am a very persuasive man.

I consider myself to be quite persuasive when I want.

Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers.

Gold is a deep-persuading orator.

The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.

I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.