Eloquence Quotes - Page 13

• I grew intoxicated with my own eloquence.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Grew, Intoxicated, My Own

  Benjamin Disraeli (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Benjamin Disraeli (Illustrated)”, p.898, Delphi Classics

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• Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable.

  William Hazlitt

  Names, Argument, Concise

  William Hazlitt (1839). “Sketches and Essays”, p.219

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• Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love, With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art.

  Joseph Addison

  Music, Art, Moving

  Joseph Addison (1868). “The Works of Joseph Addison”, p.425

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• Among all the valuable things of this world, the word is the most precious. For in the word one can find a light which gems and jewels do not possess; a word may contain so much life that it can heal the wounds of the heart. Therefore, poetry in which the soul is expressed is as living as a human being. The greatest reward that God bestows on man is eloquence and poetry. This is not an exaggeration, for it is the gift of the poet that culminates, in time, with the gift of prophecy.

  Hazrat Inayat Khan

  Heart, Men, Light

  Hazrat Inayat Khan (1960). “The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan: Sufi Mysticism”, p.311, Library of Alexandria

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• In the modesty of fearful duty, I read as much as from the rattling tongue of saucy and audacious eloquence.

  William Shakespeare

  Tongue, Modesty, Duty

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 5, sc. 1, l. 100

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• A thunder-storm!—the eloquence of heaven, When every cloud is from its slumber riven, Who hath not paused beneath its hollow groan, And felt Omnipotence around him thrown? With what a gloom the ush’ring scene appears! The leaves all shiv’ring with instinctive fears, The waters curling with a fellow dread, A veiling fervour round creation spread, And, last, the heavy rain’s reluctant shower, With big drops patt’ring on the tree and bower, While wizard shapes the bowing sky deform,— All mark the coming of the thunder-storm!

  Robert Montgomery

  Rain, Omnipotence, Sky

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• When you have breakfasted well and fully, if you will drink a big cup of chocolate at the end you will have digested the whole perfectly three hours later, and you will still be able to dine. Because of my scientific enthusiasm and the sheer force of my eloquence I have persuaded a number of ladies to try this, although they were convinced it would kill them; they have always found themselves in fine shape indeed, and have not forgotten to give the Professor his rightful due.

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

  Numbers, Giving, Chocolate

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (2009). “The Physiology of Taste: or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy”, p.121, Vintage

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

  William Zinsser

  Transactions, Invites

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• [T]here are, at bottom, basically two ways to order social affairs, Coercively, through the mechanisms of the state - what we can call political society. And voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations - what we can call civil society. ... In a civil society, you make the decision. In a political society, someone else does. ... Civil society is based on reason, eloquence, and persuasion, which is to say voluntarism. Political society, on the other hand, is based on force.

  Ed Crane

  Two, Hands, Order

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• Whatever capital you divert to the support of a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some other employment, and that means from somebody else. I would spend any conceivable amount of zeal and eloquence if I possessed it to try to make people grasp this idea. Capital is force. If it goes one way it cannot go another. If you give a loaf to a pauper you cannot give the same loaf to a laborer. Now this other man who would have got it but for the charitable sentiment which bestowed it on a worthless member of society is the Forgotten Man.

  William Graham Sumner

  Mean, Men, Ideas

  William Graham Sumner (1971). “Sumner today: selected essays of William Graham Sumner, with comments by American leaders”

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• The Lord is no respector of persons, and will give success to all who work for it. If l can only impress upon the minds of the youth of Zion the eloquence, the inexpressible eloquence of work, I shall feel fully repaid.

  Heber J. Grant

  Work, Zion, Giving

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• Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things-eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies-since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn.

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Mind, Study

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• True eloquence forgoes eloquence.

  Andre Gide

  Miscellaneous

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• The truth is mightier than eloquence, the Spirit greater than genius, faith more than education.

  Martin Luther

  Genius, Spirit, Truth Is

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• Say she rail; why, I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale. Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew. Say she be mute and will not speak a word; Then I'll commend her volubility, and say she uttereth piercing eloquence.

  William Shakespeare

  Morning, Rose, Dew

  'The Taming Of The Shrew' (1592) act 2, sc. 1, l. 171

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• The ambition of superior sensibility and superior eloquence disposes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another; and each labors first to impose upon himself and then to propagate the imposture.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Ambition, Criticism

  Samuel Johnson, William Page (1860). “Life and Writings”, p.311

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• Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.

  William Hazlitt

  Art, Silence, Quality

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1472, Delphi Classics

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• There is at least as much eloquence in the voice, eyes, and air of a speaker as in his choice of words.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Eye, Voice, Air

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• What is the average type of a counterfeit church? A hammock, attached on one side to the cross, and, on the other, held and swung to and fro by the forefinger of Mammon; its freight of nominal Christians elegantly moaning meanwhile over the evils of the times, and not at ease unless fanned by eloquence and music, and sprinkled by social adulations into perfumed, unheroic slumber.

  Joseph Cook

  Christian, Average, Evil

  Joseph Cook (1881). “Scepticism and Rationalism: Elective Affinities and Hereditary Descent”

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• Poetry is the eloquence of verse.

  William C. Bryant

  Poetry, Poetry Is, Verses

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• He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy. He, the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.

  Saint Augustine

  Christmas, Mother, Hands

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• Spirituality is best manifested on the ground, not in the air. Rapturous day-dreams, flights of heavenly fancy, longings to see the Invisible, are less expensive and less expressive than the plain doing of duty. To have bread excite thankfulness and a drink of water send the heart to God is better than sighs for the unattainable. To plow a straight furrow on Monday or dust a room well on Tuesday or kiss a bumped forehead on Wednesday is worth more than the most ecstatic thrill under Sunday eloquence. Spirituality is seeing God in common things, and showing God in common tasks.

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock

  Dream, Monday, Heart

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1901). “Thoughts for Every-day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock”

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• If our eloquence be directed above the heads of our hearers, we shall do no execution. By pointing our arguments low, we stand a chance of hitting their hearts as well as their heads. In addressing angels, we could hardly raise our eloquence too high; but we must remember that men are not angels.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Heart, Angel, Men

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.147

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• In pulpit eloquence, the grand difficulty lies here--to give the subject all the dignity it so fully deserves, without attaching any importance to ourselves. The Christian messenger cannot think too highly of his prince, nor too humbly of himself.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Christian, Lying, Thinking

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.44

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• Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul.

  Hannah More

  Prayer, Soul, Feelings

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