Boris Johnson Quotes

… a style of oratory that I never heard equaled in this or any other country

He is a third rate Western lawyer…they take a fourth rate lecturer, who cannot speak good grammar and whose speeches are illiterate compositions…interlarded with coarse and clumsy jokes.

He is the most brilliant speaker of the English tongue of all men on this globe

He was born to be a senator. He never said anything important, and he always said it sonorously.

Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested

Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.

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

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

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

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press conference recently.

Regan’s greatness as a rhetorician was in his delivery not in the content of what he said as with Churchill and Roosevelt.

Talking and eloquence are not the same.

The President [George W. Bush] speaks Spanish almost as well as he speaks English.

Mr. Lincoln is one of Nature’s orators, using his rare powers solely and effectively to elucidate and to convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well.

It is much better when a member resumes his seat after he has made a speech for the House to have the feeling that they wish he had gone on longer instead of wondering why he did not stop sooner.

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.

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

... the gustiest and gloriest, loudest and lustiest, the deadliest and damndest orator ever heard on this or any other earth ..., the champion boob-bumper of all epoches.

Mr. James Madison is a character who has long been in public life; and what is very remarkable every Person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician, with the Scholar. In the management of every great question he evidently took the lead in the Convention, and tho' he cannot be called an Orator, he is a most agreeable, eloquent, and convincing Speaker. From a spirit of industry and application which he possesses in a most eminent degree, he always comes forward the best informed Man of any point in debate. The affairs of the United States, he perhaps, has the most correct knowledge of, of any Man in the Union.

In those days it was very nice to have a President who clearly spoke the English language.

Great speech is impassioned; small speech cantankerous.

No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.

Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.