Quotes About Rhetorical

#1. There's something I want to show you. Do you think anyone would notice if we slipped away for a bit?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "Given that we make up a full quarter of the guest list, I would be a little insulted if they didn't notice." "It was a rhetorical question.

Marissa Meyer

#2. Has the casual use of profanity in English reached a high tide? That's a rhetorical question, but I'm going to answer it anyway: Fuck yeah.

Mary Norris

#3. I like to use research to enlarge the poem. And sometimes a rhetorical or syntactical gesture stitches the poem along.

Alison Hawthorne Deming

#4. Can I ask you a personal question? Of all the rhetorical questions
in the world, that is the one which irritates me most with its
simultaneous gesture towards and denial of the trespass that is about
to follow.

Kamila Shamsie

#5. There's a love of rhetorical skill in the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden doesn't just go on tape cassettes and say, 'America sucks.' He recites poetry; he finds things that 'America sucks' rhymes with.

P. J. O'Rourke

#6. So far the changes in the president in his second term have been mainly of a rhetorical nature.

Brent Scowcroft

#7. I don't want to become a rhetorical speaker. My effectiveness is mastering all of the data and being able to respond.

Norman Finkelstein

#8. Dad, I'll never do any better. He's smart and funny and good-looking.."
Stephanie," he took both my hands, "how could you do any worse?"
Best rhetorical question ever.

Stephanie Klein

#9. Political realists see the world as it is: an arena of power politics moved primarily by perceived immediate self-interests, where morality is rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest.

Saul D. Alinsky

#10. Godwin's law states that the longer any online debate goes on, the likelier it is that someone will play the Nazi card. It's the rhetorical equivalent of going nuclear and stupid at the same time.

John Avlon

#11. Liberal education intertwines the philosophical and rhetorical so that we learn how to learn, so that we continue both inquiry and cultural participation throughout our lives because learning has become part of who we are.

Michael S. Roth

#12. Not all of Derrida's writing is to everyone's taste. He had an irritating habit of overusing the rhetorical question, which lends itself easily to parody: 'What is it, to speak? How can I even speak of this? Who is this "I" who speaks of speaking?

Terry Eagleton

#13. What am I to do with you?" Redd asked.
"M-maybe you could-" Jack began.
The Cat raised a paw. "I know."
"It was a rhetorical question, fools! You don't answer it! Since when do I need help making anyone suffer?

Frank Beddor

#14. So I want to ask you a hypothetical question.
My favorite kind. Next to rhetorical ones. I can nap equally well through either kind.

Orson Scott Card

#15. We find rhetorical situations everywhere in life, and only our imaginations can get us out of them.

Northrop Frye

#16. A group trying to curtail the civil rights of gays and lesbians portrays itself, in this rhetorical twist, as victims of an effort to curtail the civil rights of Christians. One

Chris Hedges

#17. Do the rhetorical quarrels of bourgeois political parties have anything to do with the interests of the humble and downtrodden?

Mario Vargas-Llosa

#18. The open letter has always been an interesting rhetorical strategy - a way of delivering a pointed message to a specific individual or group while also reaching a wide audience.

Roxane Gay

#19. Irony sucks, you know?"
Roger nodded. "That it does. Safely confined to the pages of novels, it's an interesting rhetorical device; encountered loose in the real world, it's a beast with steel claws and mirrors for eyes.

John Langan

#20. Do I know what rhetorical means?

Homer

#21. That sense of a life in natural objects, which in most poetry is but a rhetorical artifice, was, then, in Wordsworth the assertion of what was for him almost literal fact.

Walter Pater

#22. Though Argaven might be neither sane nor shrewd, he had had long practice in the evasions and challenges and rhetorical subtleties used in conversation by those whose main aim in life was the achievement and maintenance of the shifgrethor relationship on a high level.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#23. Attempts to nail down "who we really are" most often serve as rhetorical pawns in unwinnable arguments fueled by competing agendas

Maggie Nelson

#24. Sometimes societies become too stupid to survive. A nation that takes Barack Obama's current rhetorical flourishes seriously is certainly well advanced along that dismal path.

Mark Steyn

#25. Precisely because Marx was convinced that the cause of the proletariat was of decisive importance for the whole future of mankind, he wanted to create for that cause not a flimsy platform of rhetorical invective or wishful thinking, but the rock-like foundation of scientific truth.

Ernest Mandel

#26. Well," a female voice said. "What have we here?"
"Here," Bethany said, responding to the woman's rhetorical question, "we have a teenager. And she's pissed.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

#27. when a Greek or Roman individual wanted to communicate a concept, he or she would typically write a theological treatise or lay out a rhetorical argument or speech about the topic. When a Hebrew teacher would seek to communicate something, he would often convey the message through a story.

Robert F. Gallaty

#28. I grew up in a little Methodist church that was very rural, very community support-oriented, made up of great people who talked about love and grace and the spiritual experience, but only in rhetorical terms.

James Redfield

#29. Like 'God's Not Dead,' the fundamentalist Christian movie that has become a popular hit, 'Transcendence' is essentially a dramatized debate. And as 'God's Not Dead' stacks the rhetorical cards for the Deity's existence, the Pfister film eventually hangs back with the Luddites.

Richard Corliss

#30. That's a rhetorical question, and trying to answer rhetorical questions instead of being cowed by them is a good habit to cultivate.

Daniel C. Dennett

#31. Bill Knott's poems are ... rhetorical fluff ... and fake.

Ron Loewinsohn

#32. It leads to self-fulfilling prophecy and justifications for all manner of obscenities," Leto said. "This ... rhetorical despotism, Lord?" "Yes! It shields evil behind walls of self-righteousness which are proof against all arguments against the evil.

Frank Herbert

#33. Abstract anger is great for rhetorical carrying on. You can go on endlessly about the post office, but it doesn't mean you're mad at your mailman.

P. J. O'Rourke

#34. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense - nonsense upon stilts.

Jeremy Bentham

#35. 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

#36. I think that when you reveal things that are going to cause pain, you have rhetorical resources in poetry.

Vijay Seshadri

#37. What a wretched thing is all fame! A renown of the highest sort endures, say, for two thousand years. And then? Why, then, a fathomless eternity swallows it. Work for eternity; not the meagre rhetorical eternity of the periodical critics, but for the real eternity wherein dwelleth the Divine.

Thomas Carlyle

#38. By way of personal instinct, I have an inherent distaste for grandiose rhetorical statements, which don't have any substantive dimension to them

Kevin Rudd

#39. The second most important attribute of winners, after understanding the human dimension, is knowing what questions to ask, the rhetorical nature.

Frank Luntz

#40. I come from a place that likes grandeur; it likes large gestures; it is not inhibited by flourish; it is a rhetorical society; it is a society of physical performance; it is a society of style.

Derek Walcott

#41. Sounding frank, honest, and sincere is, of course, a rhetorical strategy in itself, known from ancient literature as parrhesia. It's often employed by liars.

John Jeremiah Sullivan

#42. Anglo-Saxon tends not to lend itself to long and elaborate words that have strung together three or four affixes to create a rhetorical term for a very obscure thing. While

Ammon Shea

#43. There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification.

George Henry Lewes

#44. Without critical work, political awareness is likely to remain superficial and rhetorical.

Carter Heyward

#45. Barack Obama may have found the answer to his biggest rhetorical challenge: When millions of voters are unemployed or underemployed, how does a president simultaneously sound realistic and optimistic?

Ron Fournier

#46. How can I wear a leather suit that does not carry the stains of wine and blood?" asks CT, and Gustav does not answer; of course it was rhetorical

Alissa Nutting

#47. We might think then of rhetorical production as an extended intentional state in which rhetoric emerges from the dynamic, ongoing intra-actions of human and nonhuman entities all projecting toward each other.

Anonymous

#48. Hypotyposis is the rhetorical effect by which words succeed in rendering a visual scene.

Umberto Eco

#49. Using rhetorical questions in speeches is a great way to keep the audience involved. Don't you think those kinds of questions would keep your attention?

Bo Bennett

#50. Some of the worst writing around suffers from inert verbs and the unintended use of the passive voice. Yet the passive voice remains an important arrow in the rhetorical quiver. After all, it exists for a reason.

Constance Hale

#51. I'm not a gun owner and, as I think as is the case for the more than half the people in the country who also aren't gun owners, that means that for me guns are alien. In the current rhetorical climate people seem not to want to say: I think guns are kind of scary and don't want to be around them.

Josh Marshall

#52. All language is rhetorical, and even the senses are poets.

George Santayana

#53. People often ask how I got interested in the brain; my rhetorical answer is: 'How can anyone NOT be interested in it?' Everything you call 'human nature' and consciousness arises from it.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

#54. As we all know, there is no force stronger in the rhetorical universe than that of liberal race-guilt.

Greg Gutfeld

#55. The beauty of merism is that it's absolutely unnecessary. It's words for words' sake: a gushing torrent of invention filled with noun and noun and signifying nothing. Why a rhetorical figure that gabs on and on for no good reason should be central to the rite of marriage is beyond me.

Mark Forsyth

#56. Parla Come Mangi'
It is a common way to say 'be simple', 'don't try to be rhetorical' literaly: 'speak the way you eat

Elizabeth Gilbert

#57. There can be little question that good composition is far less dependent upon acquaintance with its laws, than upon practice and natural aptitude. A clear head, a quick imagination, and a sensitive ear, will go far towards making all rhetorical precepts needless.

Herbert Spencer

#58. When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee; don't inhale.

Ronald Reagan

#59. A rhetorical question. It has a question mark at the end, but you are not meant to answer it because the person who is asking it already knows the answer.

Mark Haddon

#60. But more important here is the rhetorical point that they make: Philemon is to respond to Paul because he, Paul, and Onesimus are all "in the Lord/Christ."1365 The fellowship that is created among those who have faith in Christ (v. 6) brings with it obligations to one another.

Douglas J. Moo

#61. The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem - new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones.

Thornton Wilder

#62. Associational ad hominem attacks remain the left's favorite rhetorical strategy for undermining opponents.

Jonah Goldberg

#63. In the world of opinion writing, there's something called the 'to be sure' paragraph. A sort of rhetorical antibiotic, it seeks to defend against critics by injecting a tiny bit of counter-argument before moving on with the main point.

Meghan Daum

#64. Charientism (n.) A rhetorical term to describe saying a disagreeable thing in an agreeable way.

If I knew how to say disagreeable things in an agreeable fashion I most likely would not be spending most of my time siting alone in a room, reading the dictionary.

Ammon Shea

#65. I had escaped from my prior partisan mind-set (reject first, ask rhetorical questions later) and began to think about liberal and conservative policies as manifestations of deeply conflicting but equally heartfelt visions of the good society.28

Jonathan Haidt

#66. O love-why can't you leave me alone? Which is a rhetorical question meaning: for heaven's sake, don't.

Thomas Merton

#67. The niftiest turn of phrase, the most elegant flight of rhetorical fancy, isn't worth beans next to a clear thought clearly expressed.

Jeff Greenfield

#68. The dangerous pileup of modifiers is a hallmark of Joel's rhetorical style.

Michael Pollan

#69. Obviously, Jay-Z is one of the greatest entertainers of the world today. Not only is he a remarkable rhetorical genius, he's also a man of deep sympathy and empathy for those who are lost and vulnerable, but especially under-educated youth of all cultures and stripes.

Michael Eric Dyson

#70. There's something about rhetorical violence that is ugly and worrying.

Mario Cuomo

#71. Religious speech is extreme, emotional, and motivational. It is anti-literal, relying on metaphor, allusion, and other rhetorical devices, and it assumes knowledge within a community of believers.

Amy Waldman

#72. I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application.

George Saunders

#73. If you write a good action sequence well in a novel, you're already writing it for film, because the only way to do it well is to use some of the same tricks. They're rhetorical, not visual, but it's the same move.

Justin Cronin

#74. And then, having made my rhetorical point, I will put my robot eyes on, because I mean, with robot eyes you can probably see through girls' shirts and stuff. Augustus, my friend, Godspeed.

John Green

#75. Ast year's Best-Sex-Scene-in-a-film winner Vince Voyeur's real name turns out to be John LaForme. Rhetorical Q.: How, if one's real name was John LaForme, could that person possibly feel the need for a nom de guerre?

David Foster Wallace

#76. The peculiar circumstances arising out of the fall of the Syracusan tyranny seem to have produced the first practitioners of the art of rhetorical

Aristotle.

#77. Good. Well. Shit." Locke rubbed his gloved hands together. "I guess that's that. I'm all out of rhetorical flourishes.

Scott Lynch

#78. That was a rhetorical question! Don't you even know what a rhetorical question is?"

Miles didn't know whether to answer.

Jory John

#79. Here is a fundamental conflict in educated society: We are not supposed to value beauty so highly, and yet who can defend against its sheer power to move, its rhetorical force?

Russell Smith

#80. I think of a monument as being symbolic and for the people and therefore rhetorical, not honest, not personal.

Claes Oldenburg

#81. Women are good at rhetorical questions, aren't they?

Stephen King

#82. When God asks a question, it is always rhetorical.

Ron Brackin

#83. My speaking style was criticised by no less an authority than Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a low moment, my friends, to have my rhetorical skills denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg.

Boris Johnson

#84. Natural rights, nonsense; natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense, elevated nonsense, nonsense going on stilts.

John Stuart Mill

#85. To claim "humanitarian motives" when the motive is envy and its supposed appeasement, is a favorite rhetorical device of politicians today, and has been for at least a hundred and fifty years.

Helmut Schoeck

#86. Art has always been this
pure interrogation, rhetorical question less the rhetoric
whatever else it may have been obliged by social reality to appear.

Samuel Beckett

#87. In their recently aborted struggle to inject Genesis literalism into science classrooms, fundamentalist groups followed their usual opportunistic strategy of arguing two contradictory sides of a question when a supposed rhetorical advantage could be extracted from each ...

Stephen Jay Gould

#88. It was an allegorical, metaphorical, rhetorical question.

Billy Phillips

#89. He wanted to ask whether she were insane, but he had been married long enough to know the price of injudicious rhetorical questions.

Diana Gabaldon

#90. This is a word that is not a scientific term. This is a rhetorical tool of psychological manipulation ... Because everyone knows if you dare to say homosexuality is wrong ... you are a homophobe, which means you have a mental illness. That's what's built into this terminology.

Scott Lively

#91. The poetry of this one is called philosophical, of that one philological, of a third rhetorical, and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry?

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

#92. Now, there are sometimes making a connection between one section and another that sometimes you do want to see the pattern because it helps you to lead into the next thing - it's a rhetorical thing, where you just see how the pattern has to go into the next thing.

Leo Ornstein

#93. The baby, not too young to start knowing the ledge, the cold truth, the life-and-death facts of it all. 'What kind of heaven is that, you can't have your records?' The baby, understanding perhaps it was purely rhetorical, made no attempt to answer this question.

Michael Chabon

#94. It is best to avoid analogy except for purposes of suggestion, or as a rhetorical device for explaining an idea already arrived at by other means.

Henry Hazlitt

#95. Being anti-rhetoric is, finally, just another rhetorical strategy. Rhetoric is what the other guy is doing - whereas you, you're just speaking the plain truth as you see it.

Sam Leith

#96. Take a moment to catch your breath and revel in your rhetorical mastery and achievement.

Christopher Moore

#97. What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water? What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No.1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?

Peggy Noonan

#98. Quotations have always been supremely effective rhetorical devices, instruments of one-upmanship, ways of supporting any position under the sun with borrowed or stolen authority.

Justin Kaplan

#99. All rhetorical questions are accusations.

David Mamet

#100. There was the noise itself, which he thought of vaguely as the noise of classical music, sameish and rhetorical, full of feelings people surely never had

Alan Hollinghurst