#rhetorical

Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth. ↗

— George Santayana

#military #more #religion #rhetorical #than

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

#against #application #argument #being #conclusions

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

#philological #philosophical #poetic #poetry #rhetorical

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

— Brent Scowcroft

#changes #far #his #mainly #nature

If my mother's intention in whole or in part was to ensure that I never had to suffer any indignity or embarrassment for being a Jew, then she succeeded well enough. And in any case there were enough intermarriages and 'conversions' on both sides of her line to make me one of those many mischling hybrids who are to be found distributed all over the known world. And, as someone who doesn't really believe that the human species is subdivided by 'race,' let alone that a nation or nationality can be defined by its religion, why should I not let the whole question slide away from me? Why—and then I'll stop asking rhetorical questions—did I at some point resolve that, in whatever tone of voice I was asked 'Are you a Jew?' I would never hear myself deny it? ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#intermarriage #jews #mothers #nationality #race

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

#rhetorical #teen #teen

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

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

The problems seem so easy out there on the stump. Deficits shrink with a rhetorical flourish. ↗

— Hugh Sidey

#easy #flourish #out #problems #rhetorical

I'm convinced that most men don't know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How many people blame God for man's atrocities, but wouldn't dream of imprisoning a mother for her son's crime? ↗

— Criss Jami

#apologetics #atrocities #belief #bias #biases