#rhetoric

I hate the rhetoric of politicians, but I love it when writers lie to me. If novelists ran for office, I would vote for their characters. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#humor #politics #rhetoric #writing #funny

RHETORIC The art of making life less believable; the calculated use of language, not to alarm but to do full harm to our busy minds and properly dispose our listeners to a pain they have never dreamed of. The context of what can be known establishes that love and indifference are forms of language, but the wise addition of punctuation allows us to believe that there are other harms - the dash gives the reader the clear signal they are coming. ↗

— Ben Marcus

#art

I have a little theory that I'd like to air here, if I may. What is it that you think makes you magicians?" More silence. Fogg was well into rhetorical-question territory now anyway. He spoke more softly. "Is it because you are intelligent? Is it because you are brave and good? Is is because you're special? Maybe. Who knows. But I'll tell you something: I think you're magicians because you're unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you. ↗

— Lev Grossman

#bravery #fuel #intelligence #light #magic

I think politicians do great things in the world, but I don't think they're the only ones who can. I don't like all the rhetoric and the finger pointing. ↗

— Lauren Bush

#great #great things #i #i think #like

Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric. Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside. ↗

— Zell Miller

#campaign #deep #deep inside #how #inside

We are looking for bipartisan solutions not partisan rhetoric. ↗

— Paul Ryan

#looking #partisan #rhetoric #solutions

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#action #big #great #great nation #merely

I just find Bobby Kennedy's short campaign for president so inspiring because his rhetoric identified what America can be like if we care about each other. ↗

— Tim Ryan

#america #because #bobby #campaign #care

It seems to me we have been in a rhetorical arms race in this country, with each side unwilling to lay down its weapons for fear - usually justified - the other side would beat them to a pulp. ↗

— Pat Sajak

#arms race #beat #been #country #down

Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. ↗

— Bruce Schneier

#cannot #contrary #country #damage #despite