Discourse Quotes - Page 7

• To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.

  William Hazlitt

  Writing, Choices, Style

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1270, Delphi Classics

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• That man is guilty of impertinence who considers not the circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company he is in.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Men, Pay, Guilty

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• In thy discourse, if thou desire to please;
  All such is courteous, useful, new, or wittie:
  Usefulness comes by labour, wit byease;
  Courtesie grows in court; news in the citie.

  George Herbert

  Desire, News, Courtesy

  George Herbert (1861). “The Poetical Works of G. H. and R. Heber. With Memoir”, p.9

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• Next, to make them expert in the usefullest points of grammar; and withal to season them and win them early to the love of virtue and true labour, ere any flattering seducement or vain principle seize them wandering, some easy and delightful book of education would be read to them; whereof the Greeks have store, as Cebes, Plutarch, and other Socratic discourses.

  John Milton

  Children, Book, Winning

  John Milton, James Augustus St. John, Charles Richard Sumner (1872). “The Prose Works of John Milton ...: With a Preface, Preliminary Remarks, and Notes”, p.468

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• A companion that feasts the company with and mirth, and leaves out the sin which is usually mixed with them, he is the man; and let me tell you, good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.

  Izaak Walton

  Men, Mirth, Sin

  'The Compleat Angler' (1653) pt. 1, ch. 2

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• If you light upon an impertinent talker, that sticks to you like a bur, to the disappointment of your important occasions, deal freely with him, break off the discourse, and pursue your business.

  Plutarch

  Disappointment, Light, Break Off

  Plutarch, Matthew Morgan (1718). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.64

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• The need for civility in society has never been more important. The foundation of kindness and civility begins in our homes. It is not surprising that our public discourse has declined in equal measure with the breakdown of the family. The family is the foundation for love and for maintaining spirituality. The family promotes an atmosphere where religious observance can flourish. There is indeed beauty all around when there's love at home.

  Quentin L. Cook

  Religious, Kindness, Home

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• A lot of people who voted for Barack Obama expected and were led to expect something new in politics: a new tone of political discourse in Washington. And I think - I think they're disappointed, because Barack Obama is not a new kind of politician. In fact, he's an old Chicago politician.

  Bernard Goldberg

  Thinking, People, Political

  "Bernie Goldberg on Obama's Strengths and Weaknesses in 2012 Election". "The O'Reilly Factor", www.foxnews.com. May 31, 2011.

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• Where no interest is takes in science, literature and liberal pursuits, mere facts and insignificant criticisms necessarily become the themes of discourse; and minds, strangers alike to activity and meditation, become so limited as to render all intercourse with them at once tasteless and oppressive.

  Madame de Stael

  Meditation, Mind, Criticism

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• This is what happens when the discourse of publishing, defined and driven by spoken and written language, is talked about in exactly the same vocabulary and syntax as any widgetmaking industry. Books are reformulated as 'product' - like screwdrivers or flea-bombs or soap - and the majority of writers are perceived as typists with bad attitudes.

  Suzette Haden Elgin

  Attitude, Book, Vocabulary

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• Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.

  Deborah Tannen

  Fighting, Views, Argument

  Deborah Tannen (2012). “The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue”, p.4, Ballantine Books

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• If you listen to the political discourse in America today, you would think that all our problems have been caused by the Mexicans of the Chinese or the Muslims. The reality is that we have caused our own problems. Whatever has happened has been caused by isolating ourselves or blaming others.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Reality, Thinking, America

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• A critical discourse that had respect for the mystery of art would look to the sense of life which finds expression in paradox, metaphor, tautology, and syntax.

  Denis Donoghue

  Art, Expression, Syntax

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• Philosophy is a slow process of logic and logical discourse: A bringing B bringing C and so forth. In mysticism you can jump from A to Z. But the ultimate objective is the same. It's knowledge. It's truth.

  Elie Wiesel

  Philosophy, Logic, Process

  Elie Wiesel, Robert Franciosi (2002). “Elie Wiesel: Conversations”, p.87, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The Jesuits were good educators, exceptional teachers. In an era and in a society where freedom of speech was not held in high regard, of course, that the discourse be focused on what they were teaching, but we were able to go beyond this framework without incurring too great a risk.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Teacher, Teaching, Risk

  Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1995). “Memoirs”, McClelland & Stewart Limited

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• Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice

  Izaak Walton

  Mean, Men, Practice

  1653 The Compleat Angler, pt.1, ch.1.

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• While self-interest arising from the enjoyment of meat eating is obviously one reason for its entrenchment, and inertia another, a process of language usage engulfs discussions about meat by constructing the discourse in such a way that these issues need never be addressed. Language distances us from the reality of meat eating, thus reinforcing the symbolic meaning of meat eating, a symbolic meaning that is intrinsically patriarchal and male-oriented. Meat becomes a symbol for what is not seen but is always there--patriarchal control of animals and of language.

  Carol J. Adams

  Distance, Reality, Animal

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• Love with delight discourses in my mindUpon my lady's admirable gifts...Beyond the range of human intellect.

  Dante Alighieri

  Delight, Range, Intellect

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• I don't mind people trying to pick apart my policies, and that's fine and that's fair game. But, you know, I don't think we're serving our nation well by allowing the discourse to become so uncivil that people use words that they shouldn't be using.

  George W. Bush

  Thinking, Games, People

  "An Exclusive Interview With President Bush". Interview with Brit Hume, www.foxnews.com. September 23, 2003.

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• We atheists can argue that, with the modern revolution in attitudes toward homosexuals, we have become the only group that may not reveal itself in normal social discourse.

  Philip Warren Anderson

  Atheist, Attitude, Groups

  "More And Different: Notes from a Thoughtful Curmudgeon". Book by Philip Warren Anderson, 2011.

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• A lawsuit is to ordinary life what war is to peacetime. In a lawsuit, everybody on the other side is bad. A trial transcript is a discourse in malevolence.

  Janet Malcolm

  War, Law, Ordinary

  Janet Malcolm (2011). “The Journalist and the Murderer”, p.63, Vintage

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• It is through an "intimate cessation of all intellectual operations" that the mind is laid bare. If nor, discourse maintains it in its little complacency. ... The difference between inner experience and philosophy resides principally in this: that in experience, ... what counts is no longer the statement of wind, but the wind.

  Georges Bataille

  Philosophy, Wind, Differences

  Georges Bataille (1988). “Inner Experience”, p.13, SUNY Press

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• What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse." It isn't.

  Jimmy Wales

  Charlatans, Lunatic

  "Jimmy Wales tells 'energy workers' that Wikipedia won't publish woo". boingboing.net. March 26, 2014.

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• Of all Discourse , governed by desire of Knowledge, there is at last an End , either by attaining, or by giving over.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Giving, Desire, Lasts

  Thomas Hobbes (1750). “The Moral and Political Works To which is Prefixed the Autors Life, Extracted from that Said to be Written by Himself ... Illustr. by the Ed. - London 1750”, p.122

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• In conscious life, we achieve some sense of ourselves as reasonably unified, coherent selves, and without this action would be impossible. But all this is merely at the 'imaginary' level of the ego, which is no more than the tip of the iceberg of the human subject known to psychoanalysis. The ego is function or effect of a subject which is always dispersed, never identical with itself, strung out along the chains of the discourses which constitute it.

  Terry Eagleton

  Self, Ego, Would Be

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Literary Theory: An Introduction”, p.147, John Wiley & Sons

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