Rhetorical Device Quotes

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

There is the English language and then there's the Trump language.

Language, philosophy, and science are interwoven into the design of words, which are manipulated to create surprising illusions.

When I get into an argument I generally could get something out of Shakespeare which I could put on an opponent to his disadvantage. He has helped me out of many a tight place.

It's possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.

You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.

The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to their dream.

When it comes to being called a pronoun, sometimes I like to call other people 'me.' I go, like, 'Oh, these mes voted for Trump. This me is begging for change. This me is driving me to the airport.' I find that useful instead of going, like - because it's so pleasant to go 'you.'

Well, I know, after all, it is only juxtaposition, Juxtaposition, in short; and what is juxtaposition?

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.

Now, there are sometimes making a connection between one section and another that sometimes you do want to see the pattern because it helps you to lead into the next thing - it's a rhetorical thing, where you just see how the pattern has to go into the next thing.

The aphorism is a slippery plaything.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your magnificent indifference.

I love metaphor the way some people love junk food.

Analogy cannot serve as proof.

Humor's a weapon if you want to make it one.

irony is an indispensable ingredient of the critical vision; it is the safest antidote to sentimental decay.

There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.

It's known as the Livingstone Formulation. It's a cunning rhetorical device routinely deployed to shield avowedly left-wing establishment figures from any scrutiny that might expose their 'anti-Zionist' obsessions as redolent of a bigotry of that older and more unambiguously unsanitary type: antisemitism.

The aphorism: a platitude that swerves, or slides all the way around.

Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory.

I'm prone to hyperbole.

Almost without exception, President Obama begins serious policy discussions by explaining why everyone else is wrong. After he assigns straw men to your views, he enthusiastically attempts to knock them down with a theatrically earnest re-litigation of what you've missed about his brilliance.

In the world of opinion writing, there's something called the 'to be sure' paragraph. A sort of rhetorical antibiotic, it seeks to defend against critics by injecting a tiny bit of counter-argument before moving on with the main point.

An emotion is suggested and demolished in one glance by certain words.