In oratory affectation must be avoided; it being better for a man by a native and clear eloquence to express himself than by those words which may smell either of the lamp or inkhorn.
He has oratory who ravishes his hearers while he forgets himself.
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. ]
In oratory the will must predominate.
It makes a great difference whether Davus or a hero speaks.
The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator.
With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery.
I have been devoured all my life by an incurable and burning impatience: and to this day find all oratory, biography, operas, films, plays, books, and persons, too long.
Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity. . . but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.
Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.
Although there are some enormously gifted lecturers and preachers who do create community with oratory, I like to do anything I can to engage my students with each other, with me, and with the subject. And the subject, I think, always has to take prominence.
Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.
Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers, lacking--God warn us!--matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.
Oratory is, after all, the prose literature of the savage.
If you are giving a graduate course you don't try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.
In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.
If you can't write your message in a sentence, you can't say it in an hour.
. . . women are more quiet. They don't feel called to mount a barrel and harangue by the hour every time they imagine they have produced an idea.
Whatever we conceive well we express clearly, and words flow with ease. [Fr. , Ce que l'on concoit bien s'enonce clairement, Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisement. ]
