"Amplification is the vice of modern oratory...." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson

“The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property.”

“Victory and defeat are each of the same price.”

“He who knows best knows how little he knows.”

“Nothing is so difficult to believe that oratory cannot make it acceptable, nothing so rough and uncultured as not to gain brilliance and refinement from eloquence.”

“The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities ... since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.”

“Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.”

“Demetrius was wont to say that there was no difference between the words and speech of the unskilled and ignorant and the sounds and rumblings caused by the stomach being full of superfluous wind. This he said, not without reason, for, as he held, it did not in the least matter from what part of them the voice emanated, whether from the lower parts or the mouth, since the one and the other were of equal worth and importance.”

“On matters beyond his ken a gentleman speaks with caution. If names are not right, words are misused. When words are misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a gentleman must be ready to put names in speech, to put words into deeds. A gentleman is nowise careless of words.”

“Don't expect people to abide by your rules if you don't clearly communicate what they are. And don't expect them to live by your rules if you're not willing to compromise and live by at least some of theirs.”