Robertson Davies Quotes

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

I don't wear perfume, and I rarely wear jewelry.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

It lies deep in our habits, confirmed by all manner of educational and other arrangements for several centuries back, to consider human talent as best of all evincing itself by the faculty of eloquent speech.

Anything that's shiny, you can mix together. I love rhinestones with sequins, or baubles with fun gold metallics.

Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .

a fair degree of literacy of speech ... is increasingly rare in politicians and not necessarily regarded as an asset.

I'm going to make a long speech because I've not had the time to prepare a short one.

A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament.

Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have.

I like to quote things.

Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.

Jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule.

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

From his tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey.

An orator is a good man who is skilled in speaking.

How comes it that you curse, Frere Jean? It's only, said the monk, in order to embellish my language. They are the colors of Ciceronian rhetoric.

The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively,as if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well learned.

Jewels! It's my belief that when woman was made, jewels were invented only to make her the more mischievous.

A thing said walks in immortality if it has been said well.

Eloquence is the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy.

You've got to find a difierent approach. You've got to create some interest in your language, in the words and pictures you create. If a candidate can't give a 10-minute speech and have reporters reaching for their pens in the first 90 seconds, he probably shouldn't be running.

Inevitably, almost everything we say is either quotation or paraphrase.

His words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command. Ibid.