The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they
are, as it were, a natural art, the rules read more

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.

If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness:
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If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness:
Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;
Muffle your false love with some show of blindness:
Let not my sister read it in your eye;
Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
Look sweet, spear fair, become disloyalty;
Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;
Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;
Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?

Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
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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.

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left
an impression more delightful than permanent.
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We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left
an impression more delightful than permanent.
- Franklin J. Dickman,

There is no true orator who is not a hero.

There is no true orator who is not a hero.

When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he
answered, "Action," and which was the second, read more

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."

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.

Yet through delivery orators succeed,
I feel that I am far behind indeed.
[Ger., Allein der Vortrag read more

Yet through delivery orators succeed,
I feel that I am far behind indeed.
[Ger., Allein der Vortrag macht des Redners Gluck,
Ich fuhl es wohl noch bin ich weit zuruck.]