Robert Hass Quotes

The writing is all done, so it's all about verbalizing everything from point A to point B, and certainly there's a bit of politics involved, so it's a different thing.

A great speech is literature.

I love arguing. I always say that I'll never win a physical battle, but I can always win a mental battle. I mean, not really, because I never really argue with anyone.

I'm not good at throwing around rhetoric.

Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic; since both are conversant with subjects of such a nature as it is the business of all to have a certain knowledge of, and which belong to no distinct science. Wherefore all men in some way participate of both; since all, to a certain extent, attempt, as well to sift, as to maintain an argument; as well to defend themselves, as to impeach.

A talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well is the chief instrument of cultural change.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.

It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in it's place is a work extremely troublesome.

I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.

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.

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

Nobody has a magic lamp which can tell you in advance whether what you say will be effective in persuading an audience.

If only I was as eloquent as Demosthenes, I would have to do no more than repeat a single word three times.

I am convinced that great ideas that are powerfully presented can change a mind in five minutes.

Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.

It really is true that an orator is simply a good man who speaks well.

I got my degree in rhetoric.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

I made lots of talks and challenged lots of people.

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.

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.

Talking and eloquence are not the same.

Some eloquence is like a magic.

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.