Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
Ambrose Bierce
Yeats regarded his work as the close of an epoch, and the least of his later lyrics brings the sense of a great occasion. English critics have tried to claim him for their tradition, but, heard closely, his later music has that tremulous lyrical undertone which can be found in the Anglo-Irish eloquence of the eighteenth century.
Austin Clarke
It's good to keep in mind that prominence is always a mix of hard work, eloquence in your practice, good timing and fortuitous social relations. Everything can't be personalized.
Barbara Kruger
Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.
Ben Jonson
To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
Bertrand Russell
Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.
Blaise Pascal
Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
David Hume
The finest eloquence is that which gets things done.
David Lloyd George
Thomas Paine, so celebrated and so despised as he traveled through the critical events of his time, has long appealed to biographers. Paine was present at the creation both of the United States and of the French Republic. His eloquence, in the pamphlet 'Common Sense,' propelled the American colonists toward independence.
Edmund Morgan
Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.
Francis Bacon
Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.
Frederick William Faber
My wife has been my greatest earthly inspiration. She excels in eloquence, the poetry of words, empathy and graciousness.
George W. Romney
Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
Heinrich Heine
True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.
Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.
Henri Frederic Amiel
The 1960s was a period when writers in the West began to be aware of the extraordinary eloquence and popular attraction of the Russian poets such as Yevtushenko and Voznesensky - oppositional figures who could draw crowds. The Russian poets recited from memory as a matter of course.
James Fenton
What I am looking for... is an immobile movement, something which would be the equivalent of what is called the eloquence of silence, or what St. John of the Cross, I think it was, described with the term 'mute music'.
Joan Miro
War, in our country, ought never to be resorted to but when it is clearly justifiable and necessary; so much so as not to require the aid of logic to convince our understanding nor the ardour of eloquence to inflame our passions. There are many reasons why this country should never resort to it but for causes the most urgent and necessary.
John C. Calhoun
Of the modern critics, although I disagree with almost everything she says, I admire Mary McCarthy's eloquence and social observation in 'Sights and Spectacles'; she thinks in print, but she doesn't have a real feel for the stage.
John Lahr
As a preacher of the Gospel, our late venerable Bishop must have been heard, to form an adequate conception of his superior excellence and commanding eloquence.
Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.
It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.
Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.
Today it is not the classroom nor the classics which are the repositories of models of eloquence, but the ad agencies.
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
President Obama certainly has an impressive gift for eloquence, and he has a global vision, as did my father. He doesn't rattle easy, and he doesn't harbor animosity, which were also characteristics my father had. But my father's arena was far broader than politics.
I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.
I think public intellectuals have a responsibility - to be self-critical on the one hand, to do serious, nuanced work rigorously executed; but to also be able to get off those perches and out of those ivory towers and speak to the real people who make decisions; to speak truth to power and the powerless with lucidity and eloquence.
In Congress, there are some who are unashamed to aspire to eloquence, even to scholarship, but the only state legislator I ever knew who would not join in the mispronounceciation of a word for the sake of camaraderie with her fellows was former State Senator and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.
It's true that interacting through text means no eyelines, no facial expressions, no tone of voice. That can be an advantage, helping us to consider content rather than eloquence, import rather than source.
The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society.
Every idea is an incitement... eloquence may set fire to reason.
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.
Courage easily finds its own eloquence.
In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary.
Comedy has lost its eloquence.
What shaped my politics regarding war and peace was Martin Luther King Jr., the most extraordinary person that I ever heard. And when he began to talk about the issues of war and peace with such eloquence and such passion, I was drawn to that like a magnet.
I enjoy trolls. They try to shake my confidence and bring me down with such remarks, but they never knew they helped me grow. They saw my curly hair, they saw my dark color, they saw my short stature and they started making memes. I know they can mock my appearance but they cannot claim I am corrupt or talk about my education or my eloquence.
Since Kennedy's death, the nation has not seen, in any of his successors, his cosmopolitan intellectualism or the oratorical eloquence with which he sought to lead the nation by the power of his words.
One man excels in eloquence, another in arms.
