Orators Quotes - Page 3

• Where judgment has wit to express it, there's the best orator.

  William Penn

  Judgment, Wit

  Benjamin Franklin, William Penn (2012). “Franklin's Way to Wealth and Penn's Maxims”, p.38, Courier Corporation

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• From the circumstances of my position, I was often thrown into the society of horse-racers, card-players, fox-hunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time have I asked myself, in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the great council of the nation, well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse-jockey, a fox-hunter, an orator, or the honest advocate of my country's rights?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Horse, Player

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.389

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• What we really need the poet's and orator's I help to keep alive in us is not, then, the common and gregarious courage which Robert Shaw showed when he marched with you, men of the Seventh Regiment. It is that more lonely courage which he showed when he dropped his warm commission in the glorious Second to head your dubious fortunes, negroes of the Fifty-fourth. That lonely kind of courage (civic courage as we call it in times of peace) is the kind of valor to which the monuments of nations should most of all be reared.

  William James

  Lonely, Men, Needs

  William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1982). “Essays in Religion and Morality”, p.72, Harvard University Press

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• The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets. Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no second.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Life, Work, Firsts

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• Hume's doctrine was that the circumstances vary, the amount of happiness does not; that the beggar cracking fleas in the sunshine under a hedge, and the duke rolling by in his chariot, the girl equipped for her first ball, and the orator returning triumphant from the debate, had different means, but the same quantity of pleasant excitement.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Happiness, Girl, Mean

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.87, Harvard University Press

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• No orator can top the one who can give good nicknames.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Funny, Humorous, Names

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• Preachers are stewards whom the Lord has ‘set over his household servants to provide them with food at the proper time.’ After all the years the church has suffered under forceful preachers and winning orators, under compelling pulpiteers and clerical bigmouths with egos to match, how nice to hear that Jesus expects preachers in their congregations to be nothing more than faithful household cooks.

  Robert Farrar Capon

  Jesus, Nice, Winning

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• Beauty itself doth of itself persuade the eyes of men without an orator.

  William Shakespeare

  Beauty, Eye, Men

  'The Rape Of Lucrece' (1594) l. 29

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• Historians will come to their own judgments about President Kennedy. Here is how I choose to remember him. He was an heir to wealth who felt the anguish of the poor. He was an orator of excellence who spoke for the voiceless. He was a son of Harvard who reached out to the sons and daughters of Appalachia. He was a man of special grace who had a special care for the retarded and handicapped. He was a hero of war who fought hardest for peace. He said and proved in word and deed that one man can make a difference.

  Edward Kennedy

  Daughter, War, Hero

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• It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orator of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Honesty, Government, People

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• It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Poor, Shows, Eloquence

  Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gray, Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy, William Mason (1851). “The literary works of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.353

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• A strange and somewhat impassive physiognomy is often, perhaps, an advantage to an orator, or leader of any sort, because it helps to fix the eye and fascinate the mind.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Eye, Leader, Mind

  Charles Horton Cooley (1992). “Human Nature and the Social Order”, p.347, Transaction Publishers

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• Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Power, Men, Causes

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• Every really able man, in whatever direction he works - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter - if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be. What is this Better, this flying Ideal, but the perpetual promise of his Creator?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspiration, Creativity, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.339, Рипол Классик

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• The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Oratory, Prove, Ought

  Thomas Carlyle (1881). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished”, p.5

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• A jazz musician is a combination orator, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, poet, singer, dancer, diplomat, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer, public masturbator, and general all-round good fellow.

  Steve Lacy

  Athlete, Artist, Dancer

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• The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is - Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Hero, Men, Keys

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.344

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• Would ministers preach for eternity! They would then act the part of true Christian orators, and not only calmly and cooly inform the understanding, but, by persuasive, pathetic address, endeavour to move the affections and warm the heart.

  George Whitefield

  Christian, Moving, Heart

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• It is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount of exactness which the nature of the particular subject admits. It is equally unreasonable to accept merely probable conclusions from a mathematician and to demand strict demonstration from an orator.

  Aristotle

  Mind, Demand, Accepting

  Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.5, Wordsworth Editions

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• Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratie, Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece, To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne.

  John Milton

  Thrones, Oratory, Fierce

  John Milton, Henry John Todd, Thomas Newton, John Aikin (1801). “The Poetical Works of John Milton”, p.275

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• Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Voice, Shadow, Generations

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1970). “The Works of Thomas Bailey Aldrich: Ponkapog papers. A sea turn, and other matters”

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• In this world of gossip, a good listener is rarer than a great orator.

  Christopher Pike

  Gossip, World, Good Listener

  Christopher Pike (2013). “Thirst: Thirst No. 1; Thirst No. 2; Thirst”, p.236, Simon and Schuster

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• The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities ... since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.

  Plato

  Plato, Thinking, Cities

  Plato, Harold North Fowler, Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb, Robert Gregg Bury (1953). “Plato”

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• The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.

  Walter Lippmann

  War, Army, Blood

  Walter Lippmann (2003). “Men of Destiny (Ppr)”, p.58, Transaction Publishers

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• Justice, not expedience, must be the guiding light. The orator must fix his eye on the polestar of justice, and plough straight thither. The moment he glances toward expediency, he falls from his high estate.

  John Peter Altgeld

  Fall, Eye, Light

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