Best Rhetorical Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“God wants us to humbly and sincerely ask him things. How often do you enjoy people talking about you without taking the time to get to know you?”

Source: Healology

“Well," a female voice said. "What have we here?" "Here," Bethany said, responding to the woman's rhetorical question, "we have a teenager. And she's pissed.”

Teen Rhetorical Pissed

Book:Every Other Day

Source: Every Other Day

“Now, there are sometimes making a connection between one section and another that sometimes you do want to see the pattern because it helps you to lead into the next thing - it's a rhetorical thing, where you just see how the pattern has to go into the next thing.”

Want Sometimes Helping Next Connections Patterns Sections Rhetorical

Author:Leo Ornstein

“Genuine dialogue, not rhetorical bomb-throwing, leads to progress.”

Progress Genuine Dialogue Bombs Throwing Rhetorical

Author:Mark Udall

“I’m not a gun owner and, as I think as is the case for the more than half the people in the country who also aren’t gun owners, that means that for me guns are alien. In the current rhetorical climate people seem not to want to say: I think guns are kind of scary and don’t want to be around them.”

People Thinking Want Kind Mean Country Seems Half Cases Gun Climate Currents Scary Aliens Owners Rhetorical Gun Owners

Author:Josh Marshall

“When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably) as a rhetorical device. Such cases do not function as speculations in the pejorative sense - as silly stories that provide insight into complex mechanisms - but rather as idealized illustrations to exemplify a difficult point of theory. (Other fields, like philosophy and the law, use such conjectural cases as a standard device.”

Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

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

Wealth Effects Occasions Simplest Rhetorical Amplification

Book:The Principles of Success in Literature

Source: The Principles of Success in Literature

“President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.”

President Audience Politician Empathy Seeking Rhetorical President Reagan

Author:William Safire

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

Political Interest Party Humble Political Parties Quarrels Bourgeois Rhetorical Downtrodden

Book:The War of the End of the World

Source: The War of the End of the World

“I come from a place that likes grandeur; it likes large gestures; it is not inhibited by flourish; it is a rhetorical society; it is a society of physical performance; it is a society of style.”

Style Performances Likes Gestures Grandeur Rhetorical

Author:Derek Walcott

“There can be little question that good composition is far less dependent upon acquaintance with its laws, than upon practice and natural aptitude. A clear head, a quick imagination, and a sensitive ear, will go far towards making all rhetorical precepts needless.”

Littles Law Imagination Natural Practice Clear Ears Sensitive Dependent Composition Acquaintance Aptitude Rhetorical Clear Head

Book:Philosophy of Style: An Essay

Source: Philosophy of Style: An Essay

“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.”

Source: For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports

“We find rhetorical situations everywhere in life, and only our imaginations can get us out of them.”

Imagination Situation Rhetorical

Book:The Educated Imagination

Source: The Educated Imagination

“Bill Knott's poems are . . . rhetorical fluff . . . and fake.”

Bills Fake Rhetorical Fluff

Author:Ron Loewinsohn

“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.”

Has Beens Country Seems Sides Race Arms Weapons Beats Lays Justified Unwilling Pulp Arms Race Rhetorical

Author:Pat Sajak

“Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety?”

Source: The Essays of George Eliot

“The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.”

Firsts Has Beens Religious Atheism Duty Ought Stronger Errors Positive Atheism Doctrine Tolerate Disguise Sects Few Words Bigots Rhetorical Dissension

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“What a wretched thing is all fame! A renown of the highest sort endures, say, for two thousand years. And then? Why, then, a fathomless eternity swallows it. Work for eternity; not the meagre rhetorical eternity of the periodical critics, but for the real eternity wherein dwelleth the Divine.”

Years Two Real Divine Thousand Fame Highest Eternity Critics Endure Thousand Years Wretched Rhetorical Renown

Author:Thomas Carlyle

“I think that when you reveal things that are going to cause pain, you have rhetorical resources in poetry.”

Thinking Pain Causes Resources Rhetorical

Author:Vijay Seshadri

“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.”

Might Wonder Forever Grieving Exception Suspended Rhetorical

Book:Homebody/Kabul: Final Revised Version

Source: Homebody/Kabul: Final Revised Version

“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.”

People Humans Asks Answers Brain Consciousness Human Nature Arise Rhetorical

Author:Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

“Precisely because Marx was convinced that the cause of the proletariat was of decisive importance for the whole future of mankind, he wanted to create for that cause not a flimsy platform of rhetorical invective or wishful thinking, but the rock-like foundation of scientific truth.”

Thinking Whole Wanted Causes Mankind Rocks Importance Foundation Convinced Platforms Wishful Thinking Proletariat Rhetorical Scientific Truth Future Of Mankind

Author:Ernest Mandel

“Art has always been this--pure interrogation, rhetorical question less the rhetoric--whatever else it may have been obliged by social reality to appear.”

May Has Beens Art Reality Literature Social Pure Rhetoric Obliged Rhetorical Interrogation Rhetorical Question

Book:Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

Source: Disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment

“French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisan intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.”

Persons Universe Speak Behinds Intellectual Models Tradition Notion Affected Aggressive Concrete Imports Pernicious Rhetorical

Book:Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson

“Hypotyposis is the rhetorical effect by which words succeed in rendering a visual scene.”

Effects Scene Succeed Visuals Rendering Rhetorical

Author:Umberto Eco

“In any piece of rhetorical discourse, one rhetorical term overcomes another rhetorical term only by being nearer to the term which stands ultimate. There is some ground for calling a rhetorical education necessarily aristocratic education in that the rhetorician has to deal with an aristocracy of notions.”

Term Deals Pieces Calling Ultimate Overcoming Notion Discourse Aristocracy Rhetorical Aristocratic

Book:The Ethics of Rhetoric

Source: The Ethics of Rhetoric

“I like to use research to enlarge the poem. And sometimes a rhetorical or syntactical gesture stitches the poem along.”

Sometimes Use Research Gestures Stitches Rhetorical

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I'd finished the first two [books] and they were going to to be published, and [editor] said, "We need you to write a summary that will drive people to these books." And it took forever. I couldn't think of a thing to say. I looked at the back of other children's books that were full of giddy praise and corny rhetorical questions, you know, "Will she have a better time at summer camp than she thinks?" "How will she escape from the troll's dungeon?" All these terrible, terrible summaries of books, and I just couldn't.”

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

Men States Business Fame Servant Sovereign Rhetorical Thrice

Author:Francis Bacon

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

Guts Deep Thought Being Alone Declaring Rhetorical Standing Alone

Author:Jim Morrison

“In an extensive reading of recent books by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and inspirationalists, I have discovered that they all suffer from one or more of these expression-complexes: italicizing, capitalizing, exclamation-pointing, multiple-interrogating, and itemizing. These are all forms of what the psychos themselves would call, if they faced their condition frankly, Rhetorical-Over-Compensation.”

Ifs Book Form Suffering Reading Psychology Conditions Expression Complexes Multiple Pointing Compensation Psychiatrist Psychologist Psycho Rhetorical Exclamation Extensive Reading

Author:James Thurber

“Quotations have always been supremely effective rhetorical devices, instruments of one-upmanship, ways of supporting any position under the sun with borrowed or stolen authority.”

Way Sun Position Authority Instruments Devices Quotations Stolen Borrowed Rhetorical

Author:Justin Kaplan

“Evolution as described by Charles Darwin is an scientific theory, abundantly reconfirmed, explaining physical phenomena by physical causes. Intelligent Design is a faith-based initiative in rhetorical argument. Should we teach I.D. in America's public schools? Yes, let's do - not as science, but alongside other spiritual beliefs, such as Islam, Zoroastrianism and the Hindu Idea that Earth rests on Chukwa, the giant turtle.”

“All rhetorical questions are accusations.”

Accusation Rhetorical Rhetorical Question

Author:David Mamet

“It became quite clear to me that the Natural Law mystique, in Catholic, libertarian or neo-pagan forms, remains basically a set of rhetorical strategies to hypnotize others into the state which Bernard Shaw called "barbarism" and defined as 'the belief that the laws of one's own tribe are the laws of the universe'.”

States Form Law Universe Belief Natural Clear Catholic Remains Strategy Libertarian Defined Tribes Pagan Natural Law Barbarism Mystique Rhetorical Bernard Shaw Rhetorical Strategies

Author:Robert Anton Wilson

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

Ifs Salvation Deep Thought Earnestness Rhetorical

Author:Timothy Keller

“Sometimes societies become too stupid to survive. A nation that takes Barack Obama's current rhetorical flourishes seriously is certainly well advanced along that dismal path.”

Wells Sometimes Nations Path Stupid Currents Barack Rhetorical

Author:Mark Steyn

“The documentary style is an incredibly flexible and useful one. It's a wonderful tool for establishing the credibility of the version of things that's in the photograph - a kind of rhetorical device or rhetorical strategy. It's always felt very natural to me, because I want a person to end up thinking about the world, and to think about it in a way that is transformed by the experience of art.”

“All language is rhetorical, and even the senses are poets.”

Language Poet Senses Rhetorical

Book:Letters

Source: Letters

“I note that warmists are often banging on about the fact that sceptics like Christopher Booker and myself 'only' have arts degrees. But actually that's our strength, not our weakness. Our intellectual training qualifies us better than any scientist - social or natural sciences - for us to understand that this is, au fond, not a scientific debate but a cultural and rhetorical one.”

Art Facts Social Natural Degrees Intellectual Training Weakness Scientist Notes Debate Natural Science Banging Rhetorical Sceptic Arts Degrees

Author:James Delingpole

“When I hear the president of the United States in a great little rhetorical flourish talk about the leavening hand of the government, everybody knows that leavening hand is attached to the long arm of the Internal Revenue Service. And no one mistakes the Internal Revenue Service with something called liberty.”

Knows Littles Long States Hands Government President United Mistake Liberty United States Arms Internals Revenue Rhetorical One Mistake

Author:Sean Hannity

“What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water? What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No.1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?”

Thinking Looks Government Individual Water Air Unspoken Rhetorical Rhetorical Question

Author:Peggy Noonan

“We tend to associate humor with lightheartedness, but really, it's a rhetorical mode than can be applied to any subject. It was through researching Chechnya that I came to understand this.”

Subjects Associates Rhetorical Chechnya Lightheartedness

Author:Anthony Marra

“My speaking style was criticised by no less an authority than Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a low moment, my friends, to have my rhetorical skills denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg.”

Moments Style Politician Skills Authority Lows My Friends Critics Public Speaking Schwarzenegger Rhetorical Criticise Cyborg

Author:Boris Johnson

“I've been around so long, I can remember when it was a rhetorical question to ask, "Is the pope Catholic?" Now it's a legit question.”

Long I Can Remember Asks Catholic Pope Remember When Rhetorical Legit Rhetorical Question

Author:Rush Limbaugh

“The second most important attribute of winners, after understanding the human dimension, is knowing what questions to ask, the rhetorical nature.”

Humans Important Asks Understanding Knowing Winner Dimensions Attributes Rhetorical

Author:Frank Luntz

“So there are all kinds of things that grammarian purists would argue are awkward forms of speech and sometimes they are intentional for rhetorical effect and sometimes it's the way people chose to write at the time. Inerrancy isn't interested in any of those kinds of things.”

People Way Writing Kind Sometimes Form Effects Speech Arguing All Kinds Awkward Rhetorical

Author:D. A. Carson

“Not all Scripture is propositional, some of it is asking questions, some of it's rhetorical, but where Scripture is stating something, asserting something, making a truth claim, uttering a proposition that is claiming to be true, it is the truth.”

Claims Asking Scripture Being True Propositions Asking Questions Rhetorical

Author:D. A. Carson

“[Donald Trump rhetoric]this is a common rhetorical line used by people who are against free trade that say, we're in favor of trade; we just don't like any of the free trade deals that America has actually signed onto.”

People America Used Lines Deals Common Trump Trade Favors Rhetoric Free Trade Rhetorical

Author:Avik Roy

“Both India and Pakistan have a long history of deploying rhetorical strategies to skirt the issue of plebiscite or complete secession of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. When feeling particularly belligerent Pakistan cries itself hoarse declaring the legitimacy of plebiscite held under United Nations auspices in J & K; India responds just as aggressively by demanding the complete withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the territory of pre-partition J & K; or, in a moment of neighborly solicitude, for conversion of the LOC to a permanent International border.”

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Rhetorical Quotes