Rhetoric Quotations

History is laden with belligerent leaders using humanitarian rhetoric to mask geopolitical aims. History also shows how often ill-informed moralism has led to foreign entanglements that do more harm than good.

There comes a time when what is needed is not just rhetoric, but boots on the ground.

My purpose in public address and in speech is really encapsulated in three C's: clear, concise, correct. No overblowing rhetoric or anything like that. As simple as possible: clear, concise, correct.

At some point the rhetoric runs out, and we have to ask ourselves, 'Are we simply going to standby while somebody's rhetoric is good, but their actions are so lousy?' Are we going to stand up for that?

My colleagues, while it is good that the Nation is finally focused on the critical issue of securing our ports, our rhetoric and our passion about Dubai must be matched by the funding necessary to keep our ports and our citizens safe.

The rhetoric is the key to the character. It's the verbal music of the piece.

The American people want to pay attention to serious ideas again. Our founding was built by people who were political philosophers, and we need to get back to that, away from this kind of cheap political rhetoric of Right and Left.

Get into the habit of imagining an alternate scenario. By posing such 'imagine if' questions... we can distance ourselves from the frames, cues, anchors and rhetoric that might be affecting us.

Roosevelt's declaration that Americans had 'nothing to fear but fear itself' was a glorious piece of inspirational rhetoric and just as gloriously wrong.

In the end, for all of Obama's grand rhetoric on ridding the world of nuclear weapons, history has doomed him to preside over the emergence of two rogue nuclear regimes (North Korea and Iran).

It is not empty rhetoric to talk of the Free World.

I don't get myself caught up in the rhetoric of any personal comments that are made.

We need to think more about the nature of rhetoric in anthropology. There isn't a body of knowledge and thought to fall back on in this regard.

The relations between rhetoric and ethics are disturbing: the ease with which language can be twisted is worrisome, and the fact that our minds accept these perverse games so docilely is no less cause for concern.

On the other side, I do believe that the rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is unprecedented, is a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech.

Particularly black Americans, many of them, from quotes that I have seen and conversations I've had, are sort of insulted that the civil rights movement is being hijacked - the rhetoric of the civil rights movement is being hijacked for something like same sex marriage. Black Americans tend to have a higher degree of religiosity.

Every president to hold office has espoused some version of Americanism - the truths that we hold self-evident, even when those truths are not always in evidence. But for all their grand rhetoric and mostly good deeds, none was able to seal the deal on the trifecta of equality, plurality and socioeconomic ascendancy. Obama has.

The American people must not buy into the Democrat rhetoric.

My campaign confirmed my belief that although there are bigots in America, whose hateful rhetoric seizes the media's attention, the vast majority of people do not harbor such prejudice.

We are looking for bipartisan solutions not partisan rhetoric.

President Obama is a gifted politician. He is gifted with rhetoric virtuosity. He is gifted with the ability to lie directly to camera without blinking. And he is gifted with some of the most incompetent conservative opposition in the history of the country.

Racial rhetoric has been entwined with government from the start, all the way back to when the enemy was not Obamacare but the Grand Army of the Republic (and further in the past than that: Thomas Jefferson, after all, was derided as 'the Negro President').

This is something that I witnessed out on the campaign trail for three years, which is that there is a total disconnect between the rhetoric regarding immigration and the reality. And I'm speaking as a border state.

White House officials acknowledge in broad terms that a president's time and public rhetoric are among his most valuable policy tools.

Refusing to lift sanctions and adopting tougher rhetoric toward Iran would not be partisan issues. Plenty of Democrats think that those actions are both good politics and good policy.

Politicians must be simple and clear about how their ideas will serve the national cause. We can no longer use the complexity of today's problems as an excuse for inaction, rhyme or rhetoric that does not meet the challenges before us.

Rhetoric won't stop the spread of anthrax or smallpox. Rhetoric won't help the Coast Guard track ships that are carrying dangerous cargo. Rhetoric won't secure our chemical and nuclear power plants, ... We need to put our best ideas into practice and back them with resources.

No place in the world prides itself more on its vigilance and realism, no place considers itself more qualified to censure any flourish of rhetoric or extravagance of aspiration.

People vastly underestimate that the deal is not happening because of the regulatory rhetoric they are hearing. People will be surprised at how easy it will be.

I have heard an awful lot in the last seven years, but that's about the worst rhetoric that I have heard,

If we continue this combination of high rhetoric and grossly insufficient action, I think the risks to (the United States ') own national security ... and the risk to global stability are very real.

Most people don't think the bill will pass this year -- it's just a reminder of how much political rhetoric and pressure there is during an election year.

Most people here agree that the rhetoric got overblown on both sides of the Atlantic before the Iraq war, and it was a disagreement among friends over the timing, not the substance, of the Iraq war.

Short-covering has brought stocks back a little, but you've got very little volume and the rhetoric of the potential attack against Iraq and the September 11th anniversary hanging over markets.

Kerry didn't show up at the Speed Queen or Leon's, but he had no trouble eating a filet mignon and asparagus at a lakefront restaurant instead, ... It will be interesting to see whether Kerry's cuisine matches his rhetoric in Kansas City tomorrow.

given the circumstances, the environment, the sense that we were responding to 9/11, and all of the urgency that was created by the rhetoric and cajoling of the administration.

Given the rhetoric we've seen from the government today, the pressure, beyond moving away from quantitative easing will be very, very much on the BOJ to maintain a zero interest rate structure.

If it's not rhetoric it's an effort to recapture the share of the oil cut that they gave away to deep conversion refiners,

But what's more interesting is the U.S.-China deficit, especially with what's going on in Beijing just now. It's going to put a lot of pressure on the U.S. to get China to move (further on yuan flexibility), and to the extent that they don't, that's going to raise protectionist rhetoric in Congress, which I think is ultimately dollar-negative.

I don't blame them for organizing. If I was a newly arrived immigrant in this country, because we are all at one point or another immigrants, I would be upset with the rhetoric being thrown around in response to their hard work and efforts in this country.

He is at his best when he is trying to bring people together, like he did last year. But that rhetoric has changed. He now has shifted over far more to the Republican mantra of dig in your heels and fight for those things which ideologically position the party to be able to motivate its base.

His (Weber's) comments are across-the-board hawkish... But the market has to see action. The rhetoric doesn't excite the market anymore.

His rhetoric on everything has been this legislature is spending too much. He also has some pretty significant philosophical differences.

He's been unilateralist consistently. It's been kind of cocky rhetoric that he's used 'you're either with us or against us' and it has turned off a lot of people whose support we need.

If I see anything that concerns me here, it's that the rhetoric went up a little bit in their response.

I find some of the rhetoric being used against this deal shameful and irresponsible. There is bigotry coming out here.

Whatever the final language, it will be the benchmark of how other negotiations are judged. Since the auto workers won pensions in '48, a lot of things Detroit has done, for good or for bad, has set a pattern. This will be the case, even if the rhetoric of lifetime jobs guarantees outstrip the language.

Some of the rhetoric has been embarrassing, even xenophobic.

Part of the strategy is keeping the rhetoric up to remind the Syrians that they are not out of the box yet and that Lebanese democracy has the full support of the Western powers.

Particularly the rhetoric they use around the things like marriage, where instead of advocating for fairness and inclusion, they actually advocate discrimination.

Our message to India and Pakistan is that there should be no further nuclear testing, no deployment or testing of missiles, no more inflammatory rhetoric and no more provocative military activity,

I think some of the rhetoric against the president was over the top.

John Kerry's rhetoric on the campaign trail is hiding a long list of missed votes and empty promises on the issues he claims are priorities.

John Kerry's shifting positions, his contradictions, his pessimism and his hopeless rhetoric send the wrong message to our troops, to our allies, to our enemies and to the world,

It is going to put a lot of pressure on the US to get China to move further on yuan flexibility and to the extent that they don't, that's going to raise protectionist rhetoric in Congress.

I think there is a certain amount of leeway in the budget ... anything from here can only get better and the right rhetoric will be positive for the market.

Our community knows the difference between rhetoric and results. They know the difference between pandering and producing.

Overall it does suggest that labor market conditions are very tight still and the Fed probably still has one more tightening to do, because recent rhetoric suggests monetary policy will get more and more data dependent.

I think the press has been sucked in by the rhetoric of brinkmanship. I've been optimistic all along.

I think it's flat-out a referendum on Arnold and his agenda. I don't think there's any way around that. He's made it so by his own rhetoric and his own positioning.

I think it's a time for rhetoric to be very measured and constructive, and not be rhetoric that does not lead toward solutions, ... I think it's a time to proceed very cautiously and thoughtfully, and a time for creative solutions.

We'll probably get some rhetoric over the weekend suggesting we've found the bottom, ... I think weeks or months from now we'll look back and say (last) Thursday afternoon was the low point.

The president has a moral obligation to rein in the right-wing extremists in his party and stop this divisive rhetoric about immigrants.

Two years ago, a sudden change occurred. Sharon's rhetoric changed overnight.

We could get an IFO number above expectations, because data across the region is looking stronger. The market will be pretty pessimistic in that case, especially given the hawkish rhetoric we've had from the ECB.

The actions of the University in my case make it abundantly clear that the Administration's rhetoric about Harvard's desire to attract and retain the most distinguished women in the world is empty.

Most Americans want our troops home by the end of 2006. But that's far too late. Every minute that we wait, more blood is spilled. George Bush still continues his evil rhetoric that he is waging a war on terrorism, and he is really waging a war of terrorism against the world.

That's what I liked about the idea of two governors who had records, ... Because then you could just put aside all this rhetoric and look at their records.

We need to step back from the day-to-day rhetoric of the negotiations. We're on a slippery slope if we put protection of sectors ahead of an outcome that expands trade.

who is increasingly giving his presidential candidacy an anti-Washington cast, cranked up his rhetoric on Tuesday, saying that if he won, members of Congress were 'going to be scurrying for shelter, just like a giant flashlight on a bunch of cockroaches.'

We celebrated the fact that (the Fed) was much less stern on their rhetoric yesterday (Wednesday), but today the party is over and a slower economy may have an adverse effect on earnings,

The reality has been the opposite of the rhetoric especially when questions have been raised about eminent figures in the establishment.

The only way to ease the pain of record energy prices for consumers and businesses alike, and to address critical energy-related security and environmental issues, is to back up the rhetoric with the reality of adequate federal funding for key energy-efficiency programs.

There are some parallels in the sense that the (USA) Patriot Act represents some retrenchment of our civil liberties and free speech. It is not as raw and blatant as the Sedition Act, but it represents an effort by government and the Congress to bolster security at the price of liberty - not just the Patriot Act, but the language and rhetoric and debate over who is more patriotic.

Today's campaign rhetoric will do nothing to help him bridge his growing credibility gap on the economy. His speech failed to address the mystery of his own budget gap: Which taxes will he raise and which federal spending programs will he cut?

tired rhetoric and political attacks do nothing to get the job done in Iraq.

The policy of the Bush administration concerning democracy-building always proceeded along two tracks, with rhetoric that was somewhat far-reaching accompanied by the second level of actual diplomatic contacts with Arab countries, which have been very cautious.

We're losing them because they look over there and they think ? there's this giant gap between what they see and the rhetoric they hear.

The exchange rate is again under the spotlight as a wave of protectionist rhetoric rushed through the U.S. against China's large trade surplus and its undervalued currency.

I got my degree in rhetoric.

There has been a clear shift in ECB rhetoric and gears are shifting in favor of tighter policy.

There is a big chasm between rhetoric and the budget process.

There has been more aggressive rhetoric from the U.S., but rhetoric is not going to make the Chinese move faster. They're on the correct path with a gradual strengthening of the yuan. Gradual is the key word.

To the casual observer, one of the most striking things about President Bush's State of the Union address was his wholesale adaptation of the Democratic Party's rhetoric regarding energy. Veterans on all sides of the energy debate in Washington cannot fail to detect a strong whiff of political cynicism in the air.

we have let rhetoric do the job of poetry.

We're getting a bit nervous about being dollar bears. In the midst of hawkish rhetoric from the Fed and strong economic growth, there's a definite risk the dollar's momentum can push it further.

We believe that the actions and rhetoric of the Mexican government constitute an attempt to infringe on the sovereignty of the United States, and we urge an immediate and strong response from the Bush administration.

between the rhetoric here in Washington and the reality on the ground.

Did you want IBM to lower their rhetoric on Java?

Corporate customers want and are demanding that their vendors abandon divisive rhetoric and useless posturing and get on with the business of working together constructively,

What people want from Mr Blair is not more polished rhetoric about the future but practical solutions to the problems of the present.

Every major power always seeks to justify its action on moral grounds. Such behaviour is almost as old as the hills. The west has been a particularly vigorous exponent of this credo; and there is no reason to believe that China, for example, will be any different. But behind the moral rhetoric invariably lies interest and ideology.

I've been to enough meetings and heard enough rhetoric that I believe they are not going to stop here.

ISPs' rhetoric is increasingly strident about content from outside providers raising the costs of their networks. But I haven't seen hard data that suggests the volume of legitimate video is coming close to swamping ISP networks yet.

With so many new members, it's hard to say whether the rhetoric the Fed has been using until now will stay the same.

We were surprised that Sikorsky was a no-show after the company's non- stop rhetoric about wanting to negotiate. The empty chairs show Sikorsky's true motive -- to try to break the resolve of striking Teamsters. And that's a lost cause because Teamsters don't back down.

The scripture that comes to my mind is 'Jesus wept,' ... Jesus weeps today for the loss of life in New Orleans and he weeps that his gospel is being hijacked by the rabid rhetoric of the religious right -- that is in its own way as destructive to our national fabric as Hurricane Katrina has been.

The rhetoric from the meeting will be the most important catalyst,

The rhetoric has to really describe reality, or the public will recognize there is a discrepancy between the two.

The rhetoric is much different this time - this time they're really out to get each other.