Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.

It fell to me in these coming days and months to express their sentiments on suitable occasions. This I was able to do, because they were mine also. There was a white glow, overpowering, sublime, which ran through our island from end to end.

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.

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.

All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.

An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does, he gets beyond his hearers.

Speeches measured by the hour die with the hour.

It is true that despite occasional gleams of Churchillian eloquence he [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] usually spoke poorly. He was far more effective in conversations a deux. But those who dismiss him as shallow because his rhetoric was fustian err.

What orators lack in depth they make up to you in length.

All that is necessary to raise imbecility into what the mob regards as profundity is to lift it off the floor and put it on a platform.