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| Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922. |
| Oratory |
| Solon wished everybody to be ready to take everybody else’s part; but surely Chilo was wiser in holding that public affairs go best when the laws have much attention and the orators none. Rev. J. Beacon—Letter to Earl Grey on Reform. (1831). See Plutarch—Symposium. Septem Sapientintium Convivium. Ch. XI. I. (Chilo.) | 1 |
| Ce que l’on conceit bien s’énonce clairement, Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément. Whatever we conceive well we express clearly, and words flow with ease. Boileau—L’Art Poètique. I. 153. | 2 |
| For rhetoric, he could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope. Butler—Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto I. L. 81. | 3 |
| The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him. Carlyle—Essays. Characteristics. | 4 |
| Its Constitution—the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence. Rufus Choate—Letter to the Maine Whig Committee. (1856). | 5 |
| He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone. Churchill—The Rosciad. L. 322. | 6 |
| I asked of my dear friend Orator Prig: “What’s the first part of oratory?” He said, “A great, wig.” “And what is the second?” Then, dancing a jig And bowing profoundly, he said, “A great wig.” “And what is the third?” Then he snored like a pig, And puffing his cheeks out, he replied, “A great wig.” Geo. Colman the Younger—Orator Prig. | 7 |
| We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left an impression more delightful than permanent. F. J. Dickman—Review of Lecture by Rufus Choate. Providence Journal, Dec. 14, 1849. | 8 |
| There is no true orator who is not a hero. Emerson—Letters and Social Aims. Eloquence. | 9 |
| Glittering generalities! They are blazing ubiquities. Emerson—Remark on Choate’s words. | 10 |
| You’d scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage; And if I chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, Don’t view me with a critic’s eye, But pass my imperfections by. Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow. David Everett—Lines Written for a School Declamation. | 11 |
| Allein der Vortrag macht des Redners Glück, Ich fühl es wohl noch bin ich weit zurück. Yet through delivery orators succeed, I feel that I am far behind indeed. Goethe—Faust. I. 1. 194. | 12 |
| Es trägt Verstand und rechter Sinn, Mit wenig Kunst sich selber vor. With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery. Goethe—Faust. I. 1. 198. | 13 |
| Intererit multum Davusne loquatur an heros. It makes a great difference whether Davus or a hero speaks. Horace—Ars Poetica. CXIV. | 14 |
| The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it. La Rochefoucauld—Maxims. No. 9. | 15 |
| The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. Macaulay—Essay on Athenian Orators. | 16 |
| Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratie, Shook the Arsenal, and fulmined over Greece, To Macedon, and Artaxerxes’ throne. Milton—Paradise Regained. Bk. IV. L. 267. | 17 |
| The capital of the orator is in the bank of the highest sentimentalities and the purest enthusiasms. Edw. G. Parker—The Golden Age of American Oratory. Ch. I. | 18 |
| Præterea multo magis, ut vulgo dicitur viva vox afficit: nam licet acriora sint, quæ legas, ultius tamen in ammo sedent, quæ pronuntiatio, vultus, habitus, gestus dicentis adfigit. Besides, as is usually the case, we are much more affected by the words which we hear, for though what you read in books may be more pointed, yet there is something in the voice, the look, the carriage, and even the gesture of the speaker, that makes a deeper impression upon the mind. Pliny the Younger—Epistles. II. 3. | 19 |
| When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he answered, “Action,” and which was the second, he replied, “Action,” and which was the third, he still answered “Action.” Plutarch—Morals. Lives of the Ten Orators. Referred to by Cicero—De Orators. III. 214. Oration 55, and Brutus. 234. | 20 |
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| It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration,—nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome. Plutarch—Of Hearing. VI. | 21 |
| Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. Pope—Prologue to Satires. L. 5. | 22 |
| Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit. As You Like It. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 75. | 23 |
| Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator. Comedy of Errors. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 10. | 24 |
| List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle render’d you in music. Henry V. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 43. | 25 |
| What means this passionate discourse, This peroration with such circumstance? Henry VI. Pt. II. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 104. | 26 |
| I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: I am no orator, as Brutus is; * * * I only speak right on. Julius Cæsar. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 220. | 27 |
| Fear not, my lord, I’ll play the orator As if the golden fee for which I plead Were for myself. Richard III. Act III. Sc. 5. L. 95. | 28 |
| Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear, Or, like a fairy, trip upon the green. Venus and Adonis. L. 145. | 29 |
| Charm us, orator, till the lion look no larger than the cat. Tennyson—Locksley Hall Sixty Years After. L. 112. | 30 |
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