Rhetorical Quotes

• Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.

  George Santayana

  Military, Victory, Religion

  George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.39, 谷月社

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• It seems to me we have been in a rhetorical arms race in this country, with each side unwilling to lay down its weapons for fear - usually justified - the other side would beat them to a pulp.

  Pat Sajak

  Country, Race, Arms

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• Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Religion, Evolution, Nonsense

  Stephen Jay Gould (1995). “Dinosaur in a haystack: reflections in natural history”, Harmony

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• We all romp about, grieving, wondering, but with rare exception we mostly remain suspended in the Rhetorical Colloidal Forever that agglutinates between Might and Do.

  Tony Kushner

  Grieving, Forever, Might

  Tony Kushner (2005). “Homebody/Kabul: Final Revised Version”, p.39, Theatre Communications Group

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• Can I ask you a personal question"? Of all the rhetorical questions in the world, that is the one which irritates me most with its simultaneous gesture towards and denial of the trespass that is about to follow.

  Kamila Shamsie

  Denial, World, Gestures

  Kamila Shamsie (2005). “Broken Verses”, p.109, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

  Plato

  Art, Plato, Philosophical

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• Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.

  Francis Bacon

  Business, Men, Sovereign

  'Essays' (1625) 'Of Great Place'

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• We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Strength, Beach

  Hansard 4 June 1940, col. 796

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• Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

  William Shakespeare

  Rome, Cassius, Ides Of March

  'Julius Caesar' (1599) act 3, sc. 2, l. [22]

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• Do I know what rhetorical means?

  Homer

  Mean, Knows

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• ...associational ad hominem attacks remain the left's favorite rhetorical strategy for undermining opponents.

  Jonah Goldberg

  Rhetorical Strategies, Politics, Opponents

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• Religious speech is extreme, emotional, and motivational. It is anti-literal, relying on metaphor, allusion, and other rhetorical devices, and it assumes knowledge within a community of believers.

  Amy Waldman

  Religious, Emotional, Community

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• When will all the rhetorical questions end?

  George Carlin

  Funny, Humor, Ends

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• How can I set free anyone who doesn't have the guts to stand up alone and declare his own freedom?

  Jim Morrison

  Guts

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• If you didn't earn your salvation how are you going to un-earn it?

  Timothy Keller

  Salvation, Ifs

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• Abstract anger is great for rhetorical carrying on. You can go on endlessly about the post office, but it doesn't mean you're mad at your mailman.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Mean, Office

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• A common rhetorical strategy of politicians and others is to frame their opponents' views in the worst possible light, tacitly suggesting that all versions of the view must be committed to some particularly deplorable conclusion. Philosophers are not immune to this way of arguing.

  Dale Jamieson

  Rhetorical Strategies, Light, Views

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• People often ask how I got interested in the brain; my rhetorical answer is: 'How can anyone NOT be interested in it?' Everything you call 'human nature' and consciousness arises from it.

  Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

  People, Brain, Answers

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• All rhetorical questions are accusations.

  David Mamet

  Accusation, Rhetorical Question

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• By way of personal instinct, I have an inherent distaste for grandiose rhetorical statements, which don't have any substantive dimension to them

  Kevin Rudd

  Humor, Australia, Way

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• Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Simple, Rights, Nonsense

  Anarchical Fallacies art. 2 (1816)

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• There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification.

  George Henry Lewes

  Amplification, Wealth, Simplest

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Writing, United States, Matter

  Christopher Hitchens (1994). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.220, Verso

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• Do the rhetorical quarrels of bourgeois political parties have anything to do with the interests of the humble and downtrodden?

  Mario Vargas Llosa

  Party, Humble, Political

  Mario Vargas Llosa (2011). “The War of the End of the World”, p.102, Macmillan

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• Every single aspect of a text requires very careful choices and rigorous evaluation. Style is employed - or deployed - for a reason. It's purposeful. Form and aesthetics are part of meaning-making. Ideally, a writer would have mastery over a wide variety of rhetorical gestures and tonalities, our lexicon and punctuation system, our grammar, and all the riches of a liberal and literary education.

  C.E. Morgan

  Choices, Style, Mastery

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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