James Hawes Quotes

Obama's gift for delivering set-piece oratorical tours de force had special resonance to Americans fed up with a president who could hardly string two words together without a collision of syntax and whose idea of clever was the single entendre.

Obama has figured out the best method to prepare the way for his verbal Houdini acts: Use political noise as the tune-up din before the aria. Perhaps his body temperature is so low, it sometimes takes him too long to break out the song.

Princes need, in tender matters and ticklish times, to beware what they say.

We must be careful about speech writers making foreign policy.

There is a responsibility as president to choose your words carefully, especially on foreign policy, and to speak as clearly as possible.

In oratory the will must predominate.

Obama isn't good off the cuff, especially when challenged; he is far better with a prepared speech.

Anything can go wrong in a debate, and Obama is not a perfect debater.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

I really do try to watch everything I say. Because one little tiny slip, and it's like the world is coming to an end!

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

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

It is much better when a member resumes his seat after he has made a speech for the House to have the feeling that they wish he had gone on longer instead of wondering why he did not stop sooner.

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.

You say different things to a foreign country in public than you say in public.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

Because the speech is an argument, and a great speech makes an argument well, the act of making that argument is a really important part of how the policy process coalesces and solidifies both for the candidate and also the people serving that candidate.

The more I read about the rules the great orators used, the more I realised, of course, this is how you stir people's hearts, and you persuade and cajole and move people out of fixed positions. The techniques are quite menacingly easy.

Many believe that Hillary Clinton was channeling President Obama during her recent speech in New York City. She focused on equality, justice, and how hard it was for her growing up as a young black man in Hawaii.

The speeches to be wary of are those that begin with I'm just going to say a few words.

A Foreign Secretaryand this applies also to a prospective Foreign Secretaryis always faced with this cruel dilemma. Nothing he can say can do very much good, and almost anything he may say may do a great deal of harm. Anything he says that is not obvious is dangerous; whatever is not trite is risky. He is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.

We have passed the age of the demagogue, the man who has little to say and says it loud. We have come to the age of the mystagogue or don, the man who has nothing to say, but says it softly and impressively in an indistinct whisper.

Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready.

You reach a certain point in your 30s when you say things in a much safer way.