A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory.
quote by Charles Horton Cooley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Between Uncouth and Totally Disgusting
I have been told...
By some folks,
At times I lack tact!
I told them they were correct.
Since during those times,
I am not trying to find it at all!
In fact...
I am really going for ruthlessness.
And 'tact' is not generally a remembered quality,
I wish to leave.
If I achieve anything between uncouth,
And totally disgusting...
All has not been lost!
I have already qualified requirements,
For being outrageous.
So...
Don't find me at fault,
If I happen to be a bit slow to progress!
I am doing my best to fit in.
But the rules?
They keep changing!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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I have the necessary lack of tact.
quote by Ted Koppel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.
quote by Bertrand Russell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I guess grace doesn't have to be logical. If it did, it wouldn't be grace.
quote by Max Lucado
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.
quote by Lyndon B. Johnson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Paper Men To Air Hopes And Fears
The first speaker said
Fear fire. Fear furnaces
Incinerators, the city dump
The faint scratch of a match.
The second speaker said
Fear water. Fear drenching rain
Drizzle, oceans, puddles, a damp
Day and the flush toilet.
The third speaker said
Fear wind. And it needn't be
A hurricane. Drafts, open
Windows, electric fans.
The fourth speaker said
Fear knives. Fear any sharp
Thing, machine, shears
Scissors, lawnmowers.
The fifth speaker said
Hope. Hope for the best
A smooth folder in a steel file.
poem by Robert Francis
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A Postural Pose
All these reported things
they told repeatedly to me.
Seated with twisting snakes
envy desire bitter jealousy.
How tall she stands
how proud she looks.
Of her beauty envious
her beauty sparkling told.
Of five foreign languages
spoken with flawless fluency.
Without error inflected
better than native speaker.
Five languages yet
within this soul I grieve.
Five languages frozen
bound cannot express.
Non-communication
of your innermost self.
Expression others may do
at ease with language one.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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In order to keep anything cultural, logical, or ideological, you have to reinvent the reality of it.
quote by Ani DiFranco
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Animal Spirits (a Riff)
This is hard to say
(I so lack tact,)
But I've met a few
Nymphomaniacs;
And no one's ever
Ever been so kind
To bare without strings
Her behind.
But if you're traveling
My way
And are so inclined
Arch your back
So as to remind
poem by David McLansky
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The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
quote by William Butler Yeats
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Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.
quote by Jean Francois Revel
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There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.
quote by Albert Einstein
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If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope.
quote by Jacques Cousteau
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There can be no proof that Blake's lyric is composed of the best words in the best order; only a conviction, accepted by our knowledge and judgment, that it is so.
quote by John Drinkwater
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mr Speaker
Wriggles from his captors arms
Mr speaker gets the word and
Running now from the alarms
Speaks his mind free as a bird
Free now to roam around
Stand up straight when he quotes
Spread the word that he has found
Books of verse and scribbled notes
Mister speaker gets the word
(to tell the secrets he has heard)
Speaks so fast his words are slurred
(mister speaker gets the word)
Stands up straight outside my door
I bring you now the words Ive learned
To whom it may concern senor
Tell my friends I have returned
Mister speaker gets the word
(to tell the secrets he has heard)
Speaks so fast his words are slurred
(mister speaker gets the word)
Excitement rages through his brain
Stirred and stirred throughout the years
Not enough time to explain
Eyes of many sighs of fear
Making space from colney hatch lane
Just some poetry my friend
Scuttles past my window frame
Vanishes right round the bend
Mister speaker gets the word
(to tell the secrets he has heard)
Speaks so fast his words are slurred
(mister speaker gets the word)
song performed by by Madness
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mr Speaker Gets The Word
Wriggles from his captors arms
Mr speaker gets the word and
Running now from the alarms
Speaks his mind free as a bird
Free now to roam around
Stand up straight when he quotes
Spread the word that he has found
Books of verse and scribbled notes
Mister speaker gets the word
(to tell the secrets he has heard)
Speaks so fast his words are slurred
(mister speaker gets the word)
Stands up straight outside my door
I bring you now the words Ive learned
To whom it may concern senor
Tell my friends I have returned
Mister speaker gets the word
(to tell the secrets he has heard)
Speaks so fast his words are slurred
(mister speaker gets the word)
Excitement rages through his brain
Stirred and stirred throughout the years
Not enough time to explain
Eyes of many sighs of fear
Making space from colney hatch lane
Just some poetry my friend
Scuttles past my window frame
Vanishes right round the bend
Mister speaker gets the word
(to tell the secrets he has heard)
Speaks so fast his words are slurred
(mister speaker gets the word)
song performed by by Madness
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I will try to follow the advice that a university president once gave a prospective commencement speaker. 'Think of yourself as the body at an Irish wake,' he said. 'They need you in order to have the party, but no one expects you to say very much.'
quote by Anthony Lake
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.
quote by Jacques Yves Cousteau
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I was suffering from a peculiar and persistent sense that I was being pursued, and also the conviction that under the political order of the times, our lives had no meaning.
quote by Naguib Mahfouz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Mouse That Was King
Drum rolls jesters dance, frolic and sing
The crowd waits with excitement for the crowning of the new king
Order order cries the speaker order in the house
From behind the curtain the king sprung out
The crowd gasps in disbelief for king was a tiny little mouse
The king leaped upon the thrown and silenced the crowd
For i am your king said the tiny little mouse
Do not fear me the king cried out
The crowd screamed out with fits of laughter in the house
How can you rule a kingdom your a tiny little mouse
Then from no where at all the king let out a mighty roar
Where did that come from a voice call out
Well we all know it came from this tiny little mouse