The Art of the Orator

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A. and C. Black, 1912 - 177 pages
 

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Page 41 - Yet there happened, in my time, one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where he could spare, or pass by, a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion.
Page 95 - O, now you weep, and I perceive you feel The dint of pity; these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what! weep you when you but behold Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here, Here is himself, marr'd as you see, with traitors.
Page 117 - A vague and loose mode of looking at facts very easily observable, left men for a long time under the belief that a body ten times as heavy as another falls ten times as fast; — that objects immersed in water are always magnified, without regard to the form of the surface ; — that the magnet exerts an irresistible force ; — that crystal is always found associated with ice; — and the like.
Page 42 - No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.
Page 120 - The framing of hypotheses is, for the inquirer after truth, not the end, but the beginning of his work. Each of his systems is invented, not that he may admire it and follow it into all its consistent consequences, but that he may make it the occasion of a course of active experiment and observation. And if the results of this process contradict his fundamental assumptions, however ingenious, however symmetrical, however elegant his system may be, he rejects it without hesitation. He allows no natural...
Page 138 - Sec., which he perhaps holds in abhorrence. Thus, when in a discussion one party vindicates, on the ground of general expediency, a particular instance of resistance to government in a case of intolerable oppression, the opponent may gravely maintain, that ' we ought not to do evil that good may come ;' a proposition which of course had never been denied, the point in dispute being, ' whether resistance in this particular case were doing evil or not.
Page 95 - Caesar loved you. You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ; And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar, It will inflame you, it will make you mad : 'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs ; For if you should, O, what would come of it ! 4 Cit.
Page 137 - It is evident that ignoratio elenchi may be employed as well for the apparent refutation of your opponent's proposition, as for the apparent establishment of your own; for it is substantially the same thing, to prove what was not denied or to disprove what was not asserted : the latter practice is not less common, and it is more offensive, because it frequently amounts to a personal affront, in attributing to a person opinions, &c., which he perhaps holds in abhorrence.
Page 119 - But if it be an advantage for the discoverer of truth that he be ingenious and fertile in inventing hypotheses which may connect the phenomena of nature, it is indispensably requisite that he be diligent and careful in comparing his hypotheses with the facts, and ready to abandon his invention as soon as it appears that it does not agree with the course of actual occurrences. This constant comparison of his own conceptions and supposition with observed facts under all aspects, forms the leading employment...
Page 95 - Ant. You will compel me then to read the will ? Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar, And let me show you him that made the will. Shall I descend ? And will you give me leave ? Cit.

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