Jim Hightower Quotes

He could talk a dog off a meat wagon. He talked a lot but said nothing.

… too much of a talker to be a deep thinker

We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.

He was born to be a senator. He never said anything important, and he always said it sonorously.

A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk, will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.

I was a university professor, I could talk on and on and on. Give me a podium and you have to drag me off with a hook.

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 am not a sound bite person. I prefer to run at the mouth.

Every man in it is a great man—an orator, a critic, a statesman, and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities. The consequence is that business is drawn and spun out to immeasurable length.

I used to recite my speeches walking up a hill. It gives you wind power. I could throw fifty-six pound words across the Grand Canyon.

This trial has developed in the most remarkable manner, the insane love of speaking among public men. We are wading knee deep in words, words, words ….

word thrower … phrase maker

Eloquence and wisdom are by no means the same thing. They are sometimes united, but not necessarily ; perhaps never when eloquence is the mere gift of nature rather than the slow result of nature and art conjoined. A ready supply of glittering language and an ardent conception, i. e. a fertile imagination, and quick feelings, united to a retentive memory—these are together quite sufficient to make an orator, but by no means to make a wise man; to make a speaker or even a leader in a popular assembly, but not necessarily a statesman.

All tongue, without either head or heart.’

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

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

I've been delivering these little homilies since 1980 - that's 37 years - and altogether, NPR statisticians tell me, my bloviation total is 1,656 commentaries - and I trust you've hung onto every word.

Nobody wants to hear long speeches.

Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.

Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.

… sledgehammer eloquence...

An orator is a man who says what he thinks and feels what he says.

He can't run nothing but his mouth.

Here comes the orator with his flood of words and his drop or reason.

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.