Top 667 Rhetoric Quotes & Sayings

Vision is not political rhetoric.

... the thing that's happening today vis-á-vis computer imaging, vis-á-vis alteration, is that it no longer needs to be based on the real at all. I don't want to get into jargon - let's just say that photography to me no longer pertains to the rhetoric of realism; it pertains more perhaps to the rhetoric of the unreal rather than the real or of course the hyperreal.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

Must you write complete sentences each time, every time? Perish the thought. If your work consists only of fragments and floating clauses, the Grammar Police aren't going to come and take you away. Even William Strunk, that Mussolini of rhetoric, recognized the delicious pliability of language. "It is an old observation," he writes, "that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric." Yet he goes on to add this thought, which I urge you to consider: "Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the rules."

What Fox News has become in 2020 is a conclusion of decades of right wing media and rhetoric against the rest of the media. In the '90s it was about media bias. In the 2000s it was about media bias. Now, the rhetoric is so much more extreme. It's about enemies of the people.

We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.

Rhetoric never won a revolution yet.

The people you see in Nigeria today have always lived as neighbors in the same space for as long as we can remember. So it's a matter of settling down, lowering the rhetoric, the level of hostility in the rhetoric is too high.

Facts are not liberals' strong suit. Rhetoric is.

Political rhetoric leads only to confusion.

I consider theology to be the rhetoric of morals.

If we get too caught up in the rhetoric of meditation, we will miss the point. The point was to go beyond rhetoric.

Today violence is the rhetoric of the period.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

We are looking for bipartisan solutions not partisan rhetoric.

What politicians do is they never get the rhetoric wrong, and the price they pay is they don't speak the truth as they see it. Now, I will speak truth as I see it, and sometimes I don't get the rhetoric right. I think that's a fair trade-off.

Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.

Rhetoric is cheap, evidence comes more dearly.

The American people must not buy into the Democrat rhetoric.

Rhetoric completes the tools of learning. Dialectic zeros in on the logic of things, of particular systems of thought or subjects. Rhetoric takes the next grand step and brings all these subjects together into one whole.

Rhetoric is not important. Actions are.

If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win.

What I hope we will see from [Donald] Trump very quickly is inclusive rhetoric and rhetoric that brings the temperature down and comforts people so that children feel safe going to school.

One of the strongest forms of rhetoric in our society is the rhetoric of blame.

Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.

First, in your sermons, use your logic, and then your rhetoric; Rhetoric without logic, is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root; yet more are taken with rhetoric than logic, because they are caught with fine expressions when they understand not reason.

I got my degree in rhetoric.

I can only hope that the Democrats do tone down the rhetoric. The rhetoric has been outrageous: The finger-pointing, the tone, the angst, and the anger directed at Donald Trump, his supporters - really, then, some people react to things like that; people get angry as well, and you fuel the fires.

Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is meaning.

There comes a time when what is needed is not just rhetoric, but boots on the ground.

Nothing is text but what is spoken of in the Bible and meant there for person and place; the rest is application; which a discreet man may do well; but it is his scripture, not the Holy Ghost's. First, in your sermons use your logic, and then your rhetoric; rhetoric without logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root.

The disease concept of homosexuality as with the disease concept of all so-called mental illnesses, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, or suicide conceals the fact that homosexuals are a group of medically stigmatized and socially persecuted individuals. ... Their anguished cries of protest are drowned out by the rhetoric of therapy just as the rhetoric of salvation drowned out the [cries] of heretics.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action.

Violence has always been implied by previous US presidents: That is to say, if North Korea launched an attack, or crossed certain red lines, they would be met by devastating force. And this has been said even by people in the Obama administration very recently. But the kind of rhetoric that Trump is using is different, and I think probably not helpful, because it just provokes the North Koreans to ratchet up their rhetoric as well. At this point, it seems that we urgently need calmer heads on both sides, and we're not getting that.

Dialectic, which is the parent of logic, came itself from rhetoric. Rhetoric is in turn the child of the myths and poetry of ancient Greece. That is so historically, and that is so by any application of common sense. The poetry and myths are the response of a prehistoric people to the Universe around them made on the basis of Quality. It is Quality, not dialectic, which is the generator of everything we know.

Rhetoric and dialectics can't change what I have learned from observation and experience.

we have let rhetoric do the job of poetry.

I'm not good at throwing around rhetoric.

I'm not really a Democrat or a Republican, but I don't like rhetoric.

Narrative living is the beginning of rhetoric.

No, I know all the war rhetoric, but it's all aimed at achieving peace.

Envy plus rhetoric equals "social justice.".

The rhetoric is the key to the character. It's the verbal music of the piece.

Trump's rhetoric is undermining America's credibility, undermining America's leadership and strength in Europe, even without him being president. The rhetoric itself is very damaging. Obviously, if you were to try to implement any of that rhetoric as president, it would be catastrophic for America's interests.

Canada is the only country in the West that hasn't given in to the rhetoric of fear. The dominant rhetoric is a line of inclusion.

When there's no push back against Islamophobic rhetoric, people see that as tacit endorsement of anti-Islamic rhetoric.

The arts of speech are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is the art of transacting a serious business of the understanding as if it were a free play of the imagination; poetry that of conducting a free play of the imagination as if it were a serious business of the understanding.

Rhetoric paints with a broad brush.

It is not empty rhetoric to talk of the Free World.

The most characteristic concern of rhetoric [is] the manipulation of men's beliefs for political ends....the basic function of rhetoric [is] the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents.

rhetoric is will doing the work of imagination.

Sometimes "Yes" is rhetoric enough.

Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.

This rhetoric that Donald Trump is used is very consistent with rhetoric he's used on the campaign trail for a long time now. He'll always say - and you look - you can look at the past transcripts of his old speeches. He'll always say, I'm in favor of trade; trade is great, but these deals - NAFTA, TPP, the South Korean Free Trade Agreement - are all terrible.

As Americans we are no strangers to hate-fueled rhetoric.

If something's public then it seems like the important thing is the person in that public. And the notion of rhetoric. I went to Jesuit schools that focused on first there's grammar, then there's rhetoric, and rhetoric's usually seen as a kind of degraded method, because you're trying to persuade.

At some point the rhetoric runs out, and we have to ask ourselves, 'Are we simply going to standby while somebody's rhetoric is good, but their actions are so lousy?' Are we going to stand up for that?

The press is the foe of rhetoric, but the friend of reason.

I do not believe the United States and the Americans are going to let Donald Trump become president... I think the challenge is Donald Trump, with his anti-China rhetoric and with his anti-trade rhetoric, is going to make the job for all of us more difficult going forward.

The rhetoric is the first step, it coarsens attitudes