Walter E. Edge Quotes

In oratory the will must predominate.

False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis.

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

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

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

A great speech is literature.

There was nothing in all Douglas's powerful effort that appealed to the higher instincts of human nature, while Lincoln always touched sympathetic cords. Lincoln's speech excited and sustained the enthusiasm of his audience to the end.

I [Moses] am not a man of words.

The gifts of nature are necessary; but they are not sufficient to make a complete orator without art and study.

A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill-informed respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate, but speak he must; and if he is a man of talents, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully.

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.

William Jennings Bryan is a much better orator than I am. I have to think.

To make a politic speech is like being carried up a flight of steps by the pressure of a crowd.

I could sway people with words—words that welled up within me.

Nature has ordained that the man who is pleading his own cause before a large audience, will be more readily listened to than he who has no object in view other than the public benefit.

I must say I'm not very fond of oratory that's so full of energy it hasn't any room for facts.

Few orators have known how to achieve such admirable results by dint of repetition. Besides, Lenin always felt his audience. He never rose too high above its level, nor did he ever omit to descend to it at just the necessary moment, in order not to break the continuity of the hypnosis which dominated the will of his flock; and more than any one he realized that a mob is like a horse that wants to be firmly bestrode and spurred, that wants to feel the hand of a master.

In order to make a good speech you must have something to say and you have to believe it.

Nobody wants to hear long speeches.

There is no power like oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears, Cicero by . . . swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished; that of the other continues to this day.

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

The ability to speak well is the shortcut to distinction.

There are but few talents requisite to become a popular preacher; for the people are easily pleased if they perceive any endeavors in the orator to please them. The meanest qualifications will work this effect if the preacher sincerely sets about it.

The aim of forensic oratory is to teach, to delight, to move.