Francis Bacon Quotes

I think writers are prone to hyperbole sometimes.

Hyperbole is something I'd better avoid.

False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis.

The only kind of statement worth making is an overstatement.

Never a man to understate matters

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.

Hyperbole is not easily dealt with. Usually, it collapses under its own weight.

I wouldn't touch a superlative again with an umbrella.

Hyperbole was to Lyndon Johnson what oxygen is to life.

In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.

Reality bears no relationship to the super-heated rhetoric.

The point—the power to hurt—of all figures [of speech] consist in the truthfulness of their application.

We need to become more acutely conscious that words matter. None of us would deny that ideas and opinions matter, but we can sometimes be careless about how we express them. The words we choose to advance an idea, opinion, or point of view have a huge impact on how people react and respond to that view. When we use hyperbole, we increase the chances of being misunderstood and of promoting equally exaggerated counter-reactions, especially when people are reacting almost instantaneously.

Hyperbole engaged in consciously to achieve a desired effect can be, as we have noted, a useful rhetorical tool. Indeed, its use in this manner is sometimes called "exaggeration in the service of truth." However, there's much to be said for restraint of tongue and pen, and restraint refers not only to what we say but also to how we say it. It is possible, believe it or not, to be emphatic without indulging in overstatement; it is possible to be forceful without exaggerating.

When one emphasizes, as Jacques Derrida once remarked, one always overemphasizes.

This man is the bee's knees, Arthur, he is the wasp's nipples. He is, I would go so far as to say, the entire set of erogenous zones of every major flying insect of the Western world.

A practitioner in panegyric, or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing.

word thrower … phrase maker

We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire

As reason is the glory of man, so the lamp of reason is eloquence.

… sledgehammer eloquence...

For [Donald] Trump, popularity equals truth... He understands that in American public discourse, it's hard to say the people are wrong.

There are some things people avoid saying in interviews because they sound pompous or sentimental or too mystical.

Friendship language is, 'You look nice tonight.' Desire language is, 'You look hot tonight.'

I have always, always loved words.