Aristotle Quotes

Rhetoric is useful because truth and justice are in their nature stronger than their opposites; so that if decisions be made, not in conformity to the rule of propriety, it must have been that they have been got the better of through fault of the advocates themselves: and this is deserving reprehension.

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.

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

Power comes through public persuasion.

[M]ere knowledge of the truth will not give you the art of persuasion.

There is a truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones.

It is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one fact without seeming to belie some other.

A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy.

To pull off successful attacks in debates, you have to execute with nuance and subtlety. It has to be artful.

Rhetoric, which is the use of language to inform or persuade, is very important in shaping public opinion. We are very easily fooled by language and how it is used by others.

Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

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.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the right side of the argument, it just matters whether you have the right ear.

Political speeches are a particularly low form of rhetoric.

I'm not good at throwing around rhetoric.

Regardless of how lyrical or rhetorically gifted they are in conveying big ideas, any candidate can do a good job of giving a speech if the goal of a speech is more than just delivering it well but achieving some end, whether it's convincing people of some issue or persuading them about you as a person.

In a world where audiences listen for attitudes rather than arguments or information, speakers must feel the pressure to posture rather than engage.

Explaining is a difficult art. You can explain something so that your reader understands the words; and you can explain something so that the reader feels it in the marrow of his bones. To do the latter, it sometimes isn't enough to lay the evidence before the reader in a dispassionate way. You have to become an advocate and use the tricks of the advocate's trade.

Rhetoric is nothing but reason well dressed and argument put in order.

Those who, in debate, appeal to their qualifications, argue from memory, not from understanding.

Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions.

That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong.

Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors.

Poetry is a man arguing with himself; rhetoric is a man arguing with others.

If you're explaining, you're losing.