Eloquence Quotes - Page 12

• Tis base to plead the unhappy prisoner's cause,
  With eloquence that's bought.

  Ovid

  Unhappy, Causes, Prisoner

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• Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.

  Blaise Pascal

  Thoughtful, Thinking, Portraits

  Blaise Pascal (2009). “Thoughts”, p.21, Lulu.com

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• Eloquence is a way of saying things in such a way, first, that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure, and second, that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it.

  Blaise Pascal

  Pain, Reflection, Self

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• True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

  Blaise Pascal

  Philosophy, Light, Morality

  Blaise Pascal (2009). “Thoughts”, p.16, Lulu.com

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• There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn thread-bare in all common hands; who can say any thing new or striking, any thing that rouses the attention, without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not (in his public capacity) honour enough.

  Jane Austen

  Men, Hands, Offending

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• Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so thathe insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but, by degrees, is highly relished.

  James Boswell

  Wise, Teacher, Strong

  James Boswell (1827). “The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological order; a series of his epistolary correspondence; and conversations with many eminent persons ...”, p.58

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• Nothing is so difficult to believe that oratory cannot make it acceptable, nothing so rough and uncultured as not to gain brilliance and refinement from eloquence.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Believe, Oratory, Gains

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• No living orator would convince a grocer that coffee should be sold without chicory; and no amount of eloquence will make an English lawyer think that loyalty to truth should come before loyalty to his client.

  Anthony Trollope

  Loyalty, Coffee, Thinking

  Anthony Trollope (1862). “Orley Farm”, p.130

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• However much we admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or abovethe fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Stars, Clouds, Fleeting

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.68, Graphic Arts Books

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• No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Men, America

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.301, Simon and Schuster

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• What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspiration, Heart, Yield

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.88, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wisdom, Knowledge, Suffering

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.17, 谷月社

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• I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it vaults overthe moon. I wish it to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Eye, Moon

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.45, Courier Corporation

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• A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, planting tenderness, hope and eloquence in all whom she approaches.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Hope, Women

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Culture, Behavior, Beauty”, p.97

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• O, let my books be then the eloquence
  And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
  Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
  More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.

  William Shakespeare

  Book, Dumb, Tongue

  1609 Sonnets, sonnet 23.

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• A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his thought, he will regain his tongue.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Cousin, Uncles, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.350, Library of America

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• Seldom do people discern eloquence under a threadbare cloak

  Juvenal

  People, Poverty, Poor

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• [T]here are, at bottom, basically two ways to order social affairs, Coercively, through the mechanisms of the state - what we can call political society. And voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations - what we can call civil society. ... In a civil society, you make the decision. In a political society, someone else does. ... Civil society is based on reason, eloquence, and persuasion, which is to say voluntarism. Political society, on the other hand, is based on force.

  Ed Crane

  Two, Hands, Order

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• Whatever capital you divert to the support of a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some other employment, and that means from somebody else. I would spend any conceivable amount of zeal and eloquence if I possessed it to try to make people grasp this idea. Capital is force. If it goes one way it cannot go another. If you give a loaf to a pauper you cannot give the same loaf to a laborer. Now this other man who would have got it but for the charitable sentiment which bestowed it on a worthless member of society is the Forgotten Man.

  William Graham Sumner

  Mean, Men, Ideas

  William Graham Sumner (1971). “Sumner today: selected essays of William Graham Sumner, with comments by American leaders”

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• The Lord is no respector of persons, and will give success to all who work for it. If l can only impress upon the minds of the youth of Zion the eloquence, the inexpressible eloquence of work, I shall feel fully repaid.

  Heber J. Grant

  Work, Zion, Giving

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• A thunder-storm!—the eloquence of heaven, When every cloud is from its slumber riven, Who hath not paused beneath its hollow groan, And felt Omnipotence around him thrown? With what a gloom the ush’ring scene appears! The leaves all shiv’ring with instinctive fears, The waters curling with a fellow dread, A veiling fervour round creation spread, And, last, the heavy rain’s reluctant shower, With big drops patt’ring on the tree and bower, While wizard shapes the bowing sky deform,— All mark the coming of the thunder-storm!

  Robert Montgomery

  Rain, Omnipotence, Sky

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• Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things-eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies-since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn.

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Mind, Study

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• I admire Obama, and I like him. I think he has a great deal of talent. He should be applauded for his eloquence and for his ability to motivate millions.

  John McCain

  Thinking, Talent, Admire

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

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• In our country and in our times no man is worthy the honored name of statesman who does not include the highest practicable education of the people in all his plans of administration. He may have eloquence, he may have a knowledge of all history, diplomacy, jurisprudence; and by these he might claim, in other countries, the elevated rank of a statesman: but unless he speaks, plans, labors, at all times and in all places, for the culture and edification of the whole people, he is not, he cannot be, an American statesman.

  Horace Mann

  Country, Men, Names

  Horace Mann (1845). “Lectures on Education”, p.162

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• What is the average type of a counterfeit church? A hammock, attached on one side to the cross, and, on the other, held and swung to and fro by the forefinger of Mammon; its freight of nominal Christians elegantly moaning meanwhile over the evils of the times, and not at ease unless fanned by eloquence and music, and sprinkled by social adulations into perfumed, unheroic slumber.

  Joseph Cook

  Christian, Average, Evil

  Joseph Cook (1881). “Scepticism and Rationalism: Elective Affinities and Hereditary Descent”

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