Rhetoric Quotes - Page 6

• A man or a race either if he's any good can survive his past without even needing to escape from it and not because of the high quite often only too rhetorical rhetoric of humanity but for the simple indubitable practical reason of his future: that capacity to survive and absorb and endure and still be steadfast.

  William Faulkner

  Past, Simple, Men

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• Part of the puzzle, surely, lies in the disconnect between official rhetoric and lived realities. Americans are constantly extolling “traditions”; litanies to family values are at the center of every politician’s discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as “identities” that fit in the larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation.

  Susan Sontag

  Lying, Reality, America

  Susan Sontag, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (2003). “Susan Sontag: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung”

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• A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man who plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric.

  Thomas Huxley

  Real, Science, Men

  Quoted in Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1900)

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• The United States tried, by depressing the clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of rhetoric, to remain neutral, but it became increasingly obvious that the nation was going to get into a war, especially since it was almost 1812.

  Dave Barry

  Depressing, War, United States

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States”, p.60, Ballantine Books

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• Contrary to the utopian rhetoric of social media enthusiasts, the Internet often makes the jump from deliberation to participation even more difficult, thwarting collective action under the heavy pressure of never-ending internal debate.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Media, Pressure, Action

  "The Digital Dictatorship". www.wsj.com. February 20, 2010.

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• Mitt Romney's primary season embrace of the social and economic agenda of the more rabid elements of his party doomed him, especially the shrill immigration rhetoric and the harshly insensitive theory that no additional sacrifice or contribution should be sought from those at the top.

  Eliot Spitzer

  Party, Sacrifice, Immigration

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• It's time to let science and medicine, not politics and rhetoric, lead us to good, sound policy.

  Eliot Spitzer

  Medicine, Sound, Politics

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• We are looking for bipartisan solutions not partisan rhetoric.

  Paul Ryan

  Partisans, Solutions, Bipartisan

  "CNN Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin, www.cnn.com. April 13, 2011.

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• Unfortunately, President Obama's failed policies of new regulations, higher taxes, and Obamacare and his anti-business rhetoric have hit Hispanics especially hard. Big government really hurts those who are trying to make it.

  Marco Rubio

  Hurt, Government, Obamacare

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• Today's misery is real unemployment, home foreclosures and bankruptcies. This is the Obama Misery Index - and it's at a record high. It's going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work - it's going to take a new president.

  Mitt Romney

  Real, Home, President

  "It's All About the Jobs". Mitt Romney's speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, www.foxnews.com. February 11, 2011.

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• Being Muslim has become synonymous with pointed questions, with tension and mistrust, even with conflict. It has become a global phenomenon with profound consequences for inter-communal relations, political rhetoric and policies at the local, regional, national and international level.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Profound, Political, Levels

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• Even before the election I was saying that the rhetoric used by Trump was going to cause violence before and after the election. That was easy to predict.

  Chip Berlet

  Violence, Election, Easy

  Source: www.salon.com

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• Paul Martin talks eloquently about defending national sovereignty but the reality hasn't matched the rhetoric. When it comes to the United States, Mr. Martin says he calls them as he sees them, but when it comes to American passage through Canada, he doesn't actually see anything.

  Stephen Harper

  Reality, United States, Canada

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• If you think of- of the rhetoric of - of modern Democrats, it's often so focused on government that people don't accept - I think a lot of those - a lot of folks on the left don't appreciate that - that people don't want a handout. They don't want government support and they don't, from the right, want people to talk about the noble entrepreneur.

  James Vance

  Thinking, People, Appreciate

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• I think most people are more susceptible to prejudice than to reason. And the parrots of talk radio are just sending out the same stuff. When I look at my e-mails, I see the same Limbaugh rhetoric; apparently, people don't have any ideas of their own. And there's just this drumroll of anti-progressive thought.

  Roger Ebert

  Thinking, Ideas, People

  Source: progressive.org

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• Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.

  Thomas Sowell

  Reality, Substitutes

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• Narrative living is the beginning of rhetoric.

  N.D. Wilson

  Narrative

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• Number one, it is absolutely critical that we tone down the rhetoric when it comes to the immigration debate, because there has been an undertone that has been ugly. Oftentimes, it has been directed at the Hispanic community. We have seen hate crimes skyrocket in the wake of the immigration debate as it has been conducted in Washington, and that is unacceptable.

  Barack Obama

  Hate, Numbers, Community

  Democratic Debate in Austin, Tex., www.nytimes.com. February 21, 2008.

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• Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today's half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again - and have repeatedly led to disaster. Most of these ideas are not new. They are just being recycled with re-treaded rhetoric.

  Thomas Sowell

  Ideas, People, Liberty

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• More non-fringe, non-radical homosexuals emerge into public view every day. As the stereotype of the homosexual as antisocial deviant crumbles, a (political) party or faction that tolerates gay-baiting rhetoric in the name of 'family values' makes 'family values' look more and more like common bigotry.

  Jonathan Rauch

  Party, Gay, Views

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• The crowning insult [of abortion] is that this ordeal is represented to her as some kind of a privilege.Her sad and onerous duty is garbed in the rhetoric of a civil right.

  Germaine Greer

  Abortion, Privilege, Insult

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• Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Art, School, Speech

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.203

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• Even talking about change can be threatening to entrenched interests...Careers in the Pentagon, the board room, or the halls of Congress are not advanced by creating the disruptions that go with real change, so there are very few voices willing to speak up for the future and move beyond rhetoric to make serious choices.

  Mac Thornberry

  Military, Real, Moving

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• A grain of real knowledge, of genuine controllable conviction, will outweigh a bushel of adroitness; and to produce persuasion there is one golden principle of rhetoric not put down in the books-to understand what you are talking about.

  John Robert Seeley

  Real, Book, Knowledge

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• False rhetoric and false boastfulness spell moral ruin and lead unfailingly to political extinction.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Freedom, Political, Democracy

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