Best 95 quotes in «eloquence quotes» category

The truth is the very definition of excellence.

The utmost accolade a writer can receive is that the reader is incognizant of his presence. The writer must put no obstacles in the reader’s way. Therefore I try avoid words that he must puzzle over, or that he cannot gloss from context; and when I make up names, I shun the use of diacritical marks that he must sound out, thus halting the flow; and in general, I try to keep the sentences metrically pleasing, so that they do not obtrude upon the reader’s mind.

You are the king no doubt, but in one respect, at least, I am your equal: the right to reply. I claim that privilege too. I am not your slave. I serve Apollo. I don't need Creon to speak for me in public. So, you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this. You with your precious eyes, you're blind to the corruption in your life, to the house you live in, those you live with- who are your parents? Do you know? All unknowing you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood, the dead below the earth and the living here above, and the double lash of your mother and your father's curse will whip you from this land one day, their footfall treading you down in terror, darkness shrouding your eyes that now can see the light! Soon, soon, you'll scream aloud - what haven won't reverberate? What rock of Cithaeron won't scream back in echo? That day you learn the truth about your marriage, the wedding-march that sang you into your halls, the lusty voyage home to the fatal harbor! And a crowd of other horrors you'd never dream will level you with yourself and all your children. There. Now smear us with insults - Creon, myself and every word I've said. No man will ever be rooted from the earth as brutally as you.

Why are you here?" "'Here' as in your bedroom, or 'here' as in the great, spiritual question of our purpose here on this planet? If you're asking me whether this is all some cosmic coincidence or if there's a greater meta-ethical purpose to life, well, that's a puzzler for the ages. I mean, modern-day reductionism is clearly a fallacious argument, but-," -"I'm going back to bed." -"I'm here because Hodge reminded me it's your birthday.

You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight into our hearts.

Your goodness must have some edge to it -- else it is none.

An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

Abruptness is an eloquence in parting, when spinning out the time is but the weaving of new sorrow.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

True eloquence is irresistible. It charms by its images of beauty, it enforces an argument by its vehement simplicity. Orators whose speeches are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," only prevail where truth is not understood, for knowledge and simplicity are the foundation of all true eloquence. Eloquence abounds in beautiful and natural images, sublime but simple conceptions, in passionate but plain words. Burning words appeal to the emotions as well as to the intellect; they stir the soul and touch the heart.

Continuous eloquence is tedious.

Earnestness is the salt of eloquence.

Eloquence invites us to bring some part of ourselves to the transaction.

Eloquence is the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy.

Eloquence is to the sublime what the whole is to the part.

Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.

Eloquence is the poetry of prose.

Eloquence dwells quite as much in the hearts of the hearers as on the lips of the orator.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

Eloquence is vehement simplicity.

Eloquence is relative. One can no more pronounce on the eloquence of any composition than the wholesomeness of a medicine, without knowing for whom it is intended.

Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative.

Fortify yourself against seductive eloquence.

He has oratory who ravishes his hearers while he forgets himself.

Fluency avoids hard thoughts.

Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.

He spoke with more eloquence than wisdom.

I am not as eloquent as Stephane Dion.

Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.

La vraie e loquence se moque de l'e loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality.

I grew intoxicated with my own eloquence.

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

Love and businesse teach eloquence.

Forensics is eloquence and reduction.

In painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter your manner.

I would rather have a plain down-right wisdom than a foolish and affected eloquence.

Prends l'e  loquence et tords-lui son cou! Take eloquence and break its neck!

Philosophy may be dodged, eloquence cannot.

Profane eloquence is transfered from the bar, where Le Maitre, Pucelle, and Fourcroy formerly practised it, and where it has become obsolete, to the Pulpit, where it is out of place.

Poetry is the eloquence of verse.

Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.

Take eloquence and wring its neck.

The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society

The eloquence of one stimulates all the rest, some up to the speaking-point, and all others to a degree that makes them good receivers and conductors, and they avenge themselves for their enforced silence by increased loquacity on their return.

The finest eloquence is that which gets things done.

The nature of our constitution makes eloquence more useful and more necessary in this country than in any other in Europe.

There is an art in silence, and there is an eloquence in it too.

Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.

There is no talent so pernicious as eloquence to those who have it under command.