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noun
Oratory  n.  The art of an orator; the art of public speaking in an eloquent or effective manner; the exercise of rhetorical skill in oral discourse; eloquence. "The oratory of Greece and Rome." "When a world of men Could not prevail with all their oratory."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Oratory" Quotes from Famous Books



... Hand paused in his oratory, his slow anger again burning on the surface. Before Agatha knew what he was about, he had picked up the handkerchief from her lap between thumb and forefinger, and was ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... adventure. There has scarcely lived a great man of letters in comparatively recent times about whose life there is so little to relate as about that of La Bruyere. He is believed to have gone to school to the Fathers of the Oratory, but even that is not certain. His knowledge of Greek is thought to prove it, but, though the Oratorians were admirable Hellenists, surely Greek could ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... United States in extending its direct influence over the small republics in and around the Caribbean aroused the suspicion and alarm of Hispanic Americans, who still feared imperialistic designs on the part of that country now more than ever the Colossus of the North. "The art of oratory among the Yankees," declared a South American critic, "is lavish with a fraternal idealism; but strong wills enforce their imperialistic ambitions." Impassioned speakers and writers adjured the ghost of Hispanic ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... bitter quarrels, and scurrilous and abusive newspaper articles! A bloodless war of squibs, broadsides, pamphlets, and frenzied oratory was waged everywhere. ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell

... consists of such elements as adoration, praise, petition, pleading, thanksgiving, intercession, communion, waiting. The closet into which the believer enters to pray is not only an oratory —a place of prayer, it is an observatory—a place of vision. Prayer is not "A venture and a voice of mine; but a vision and a voice divine." Isa. 63:7; 64:12, illustrates all essential forms ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... perverts ten;" at least, understanding the world to mean "whatever passes as I cloud between the mental eye of faith and things unseen." Many a time has the book-shelf and the writing-desk been made a substitute for the oratory. As to friendship taking this place, surely the whole idea of a Church is based on that of Christian fellowship in its strict sense. Be it ours to know what that means, and then, if our love to Christ is the main bond of union, while that continues, we shall love him the more ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... pessimists themselves do not believe it. And when statesmen give utterance to it in the hope of startling the working-class into a desired course of conduct, they under-rate the intelligence of the working-class and the result of such oratory is far ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... am irritated.—And as for public opinion? Bah! I'll let that go hang. I have only to move to another city. [Elis is silent.] You had a friend who is called Peter. He is a debater and was your student in oratory. But you wanted him to be a sort of prophet.—Well, he was faithless. He crowed twice, didn't he? [Elis ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg

... facetious, I see," the latter observed carelessly. "That's all right. It may enliven your oratory at socialistic congresses. But this room is no place for it. It would be infinitely safer for you to follow carefully what I am saying. As you are being called upon to furnish facts instead of cock-and-bull stories, you had better try ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... desired us to throw the idols down the steps of the temple, and sending for lime, of which there was plenty in the island, the Indian masons built by our direction a very handsome altar, on which an image of the Holy Virgin was placed, and a crucifix was erected in a small chapel or oratory close to the altar. After these preparations were completed, the mass was celebrated in great order by the reverend Father Juan Diaz[3], to which ceremony the chiefs, priests, and natives all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... but the judge ruled that it was for the interest of the Countess,—he ceased to style her the so-called Countess,—that her advocates should be allowed to complete their case. In the afternoon of the second day they did complete it, with great triumph and a fine flourish of forensic oratory as to the cruel persecution which their client had endured. The Solicitor-General came back into court in time to hear the judge's charge, which was very short. The jury were told that they had no ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... fanciful soul. Its introduction into Provence is said to have been in the time of John XXII.—the second of the Avignon Popes, who came to the Pontificate in the year 1316—and by the Fathers of the Oratory of Marseille: from which centre it rapidly spread abroad through the land until it became a necessary feature of the Christmas festival both in ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... procession of dishes and heard some of the oratory, the glowing praises of Davidge and Uncle Sam, Mr. Schwab, Mr. Hurley, President Wilson, the Allies, and everybody else. She heard it proclaimed that America was going back to the sea, so long neglected. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... me long, like Jean Paul, 'for some narrow cell or quiet oratory in this metropolitan cathedral of the universe.' It is an infinite conception and painting of infinity, which my soul endeavors to grasp, but wearies in ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... humanity in them, and it was this breadth and genuineness which laid the foundation of his power as a preacher, making him strike unerringly those master chords that are common and universal in every audience. Gifts of oratory he had, both natural and acquired,—a full, melodious voice, so sympathetic in modulation and so attuned to [131] reverence that I have heard more than one person say that his first few words in the pulpit did more towards lifting them to a truly religious frame of mind than the whole ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... appointed a college of priests, out of which were chosen by lot persons to preside as governors over the college; who were obliged to entertain the people with extraordinary chases of wild-beasts, and stage-plays, besides contests for prizes in oratory and poetry. He thrice bestowed upon the people a largess of three hundred sesterces each man; and, at a public show of gladiators, a very plentiful feast. At the festival of the Seven Hills [803], he distributed large hampers of provisions (483) to the senatorian and equestrian ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... me in reading Mr. Dunbar's poetry was what had already struck his friends in Ohio and Indiana, in Kentucky and Illinois. They had felt, as I felt, that however gifted his race had proven itself in music, in oratory, in several of the other arts, here was the first instance of an American negro who had evinced innate distinction in literature. In my criticism of his book I had alleged Dumas in France, and I had forgetfully failed to allege the far greater Pushkin in ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... Lincoln and his associate counsel plainly saw the hopelessness of their cause; and they wisely concluded to let their side of the case stand upon its merits, without even a plea of extenuating circumstances. Voorhees was young, ambitious, and anxious to display his oratory. He arranged with his colleagues at the beginning that he should make a speech, and he spent several hours in his room at the hotel in the preparation of an oratorical avalanche. It became generally known that Dan was going to out-do himself, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... beautiful in the extreme, for they are restoring what has been nearly destroyed. One night, while John Huss was awaiting martyrdom in the dungeon at Constance, he dreamed that he had painted pictures of Christ around the walls of his little Bethlehem oratory in Prague. By and by he saw them all erased by the violent hands of the angry pope and his bishops. While in great distress at his ill fortune, he dreamed again. But this time there entered a large number of accomplished artists, who restored all the pictures to more than their original ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... death, in 1893, he was, in the words of one of the missionaries of that district, "a pillar of strength in the church in China, because of his piety and wisdom and his literary ability, having, withal, an eloquent tongue which in the ardour of pulpit oratory gave to his fine six-foot physique ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton

... escape almost all historians. I have found there, for instance, the Day of the Dupes related precisely as my father has related it to me, and several other curious things not less exact. This author has made such a stir that it is worth while to say something about him. He was a priest of the Oratory, and in much estimation as a man whose manners were without reproach. After a time, however, he was found to have disclosed a secret that had been entrusted to him, and to have acted the spy on behalf of the Jesuits. The proofs of his treason were found upon his table, and were so ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... primitive tribes, highly prized and much cultivated. Oral tradition among such peoples takes the place of books among civilized nations. Story and legend are handed down from father to son, and the wandering bard is a most welcome guest. Next only to valour oratory sways and influences the minds of the people, and a Ulysses had greater influence than an Ajax. From his earliest childhood Beric had listened to the stories and legends told by bards in the rough palace of his father, and ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... time of Louis XIV the Comtesse de Lude devoted herself to the hunt with a frenzy born of an inordinate enthusiasm. At the head of a pack of hounds she knew no obstacle, and, on one occasion, penetrated on horseback, followed by her dogs, into the oratory of the nuns of the ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... the Act. The period so confidently looked forward to by the constitutional fathers had at last arrived; the slave-trade was prohibited, and much oratory and poetry were expended in celebration of the event. In the face of this, let us see how the Act of 1807 was enforced and what it really accomplished. It is noticeable, in the first place, that there was no especial ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... contribute fifty dollars, after ten minutes more of the sermon, he reduced the amount of his prospective contribution to twenty-five dollars, after half an hour more of eloquence, he cut the sum to five dollars. At the end of an hour of oratory when the plate was ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... not help practicing argument. I also practiced oratory. And all the time I practiced the Iroquois tongue as well as English and French, and began the translation of books into the language of the nation I hoped to build. That Indians made unstable material for the white man to handle I would not believe. Skenedonk was not unstable. ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... reality. It is still true that the Deity gives us, according to His promise, not His thoughts or His convictions but His flesh and blood, and I believe that the elaborate technique of the arts, seeming to create out of itself a superhuman life has taught more men to die than oratory or the Prayer Book. We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body. The Minoan soldier who bore upon his arm the shield ornamented with the dove in the Museum at Crete, or had upon his head the helmet with the winged horse, knew his role ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound

... indeed," quoth Gawayne, "a desert is here; this oratory is ugly with herbs overgrown. It is a fitting place for the man in green to 'deal here his devotions after the devil's manner.' Now I feel it is the fiend (the devil) in my five wits that has covenanted with me that he may destroy me. This is a chapel ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous

... you to understand that I have consulted my mirror. And I know just how likely I am to appeal to the imagination of a young girl. I take my chance, nevertheless. Your question, divested of oratory, means what shall I do if Desire finds her mate and that mate is not myself? My answer, also divested of oratory, is that I do not keep what does not belong to ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... fifty there; they have built a church, and its membership now numbers four hundred. This has all been quietly done; done without frenzied revivals, without uniforms, brass bands, street parades, corner oratory, or any of the other customary persuasions to a godly life. Christian Science, like Mohammedanism, is "restricted" to the "unintelligent, the people who do not think." There lies the danger. It makes Christian Science formidable. It is "restricted" to ninety-nine one-hundredths ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... so easy to tell these gentlemen anything new, harnessed as he was at this moment; so he looked back at his honourable supporter for some further hint. "Say something about their daughters," whispered George, whose own flights of oratory were always on that subject. Had he counselled Mr Moffat to say a word or two about the tides, his advice would not have ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... number of years ago, before the passing of the Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain debating club, called the "Union"; and I remember that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented that renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of the Opposition and Government had their eyes upon the University Debating Club, and that if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance of being returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's nominee. So Jones of John's, or Thomson ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... bit of information, mingled with much more voluble, mine host had further occasion to remark on the strange actions of "these English." For Paul's sudden departure cut short what the landlord considered a really capable flight of oratory ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... poetry and oratory came in with one Shakspeare, and a friend of his of the name of Bacon. And it went out with Sheridan, and one Pitt, and a queer man of the name of Byron, whose name I have written in letters of gold, and have placed where envious bishops cannot take it ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... is honored with the name of Saint Patrick, and, as is said, gives health or relief to many laboring with divers diseases; and it rises near the seaside, and over it the devotion of posterity has erected an oratory, with an altar built in the form of ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... Mr. Carlisle coolly; "and this sort of imaginative fervour which is upon you is sure to find a cold bath of its own in good time. My purpose is simply in future, whenever you wish to hear another specimen of the kind of oratory we have listened to this evening, to be with you that I ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... an almost noiseless step on the floor; and a figure emerged from a deep niche, that looked as if it might once have been an oratory, in ancient times; and the figure, too, might have been supposed to possess the devout and sanctified character of such as knelt in the oratories of ancient times. It was an elderly man, tall, thin, and pale, and wearing a long, dark tunic, and in ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the original MSS. and manuscript collections of the late Reverend Mr. JOHN HENLEY, A.M., Independent Minister of the Oratory, &c., in which are included sundry collections of the late Mons. des Maizeaux, the learned editor of Bayle, &c., Mr. Lowndes, author of the Report for the Amendment of Silver Coins, &c., Dr. Patrick ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... launch to compare with) had to be put in the water and outfitted, and the season's catch of fur inventoried, baled and put aboard. By Victoria Day all was ready. They took the day off to celebrate with games and oratory (chiefly for the benefit of the helpless natives) followed by a big bonfire and dance at Simon ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... account of his reputation as a dramatic author, but which does not appear to have been very wonderful, he rushed up to the gallery, and eagerly asked his friend Woodfall what he thought of it. That candid man shook his head, and told him oratory was not his forte, Sheridan leaned his head on his hand a moment, and then exclaimed with vehement emphasis, 'It is in me, however, and, by Heaven! ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... very good, Ensal, but it needs a supplement. Charles Sumner's oratory and Mrs. Stowe's affecting portraiture of poor old Uncle Tom were not sufficient of themselves to move the nation. There had to be a John Brown and a Harper's Ferry. Preserve that paper and send it forth. The blood of Earl Bluefield and his followers ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... Royce Pederstone, their new member; on the wonderful things he would do for the Valley in the matter of irrigation, railroads, public buildings and everything else; eulogising on the tremendous help Mayor Brenchfield had given with his widespread influence and his virile oratory during the final whirlwind tour over the Valley; and last but not least, dwelling on the unfailing support the new member had received from the greatest of British Columbia's inland newspapers, The ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... same, All full of thee, and differing but in name. But let no alien Sedley[155] interpose, To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.[156] And when false flowers of rhetoric thou wouldst cull, Trust nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's[157] oratory will be thine: Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy northern dedications fill. 170 Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name. Let Father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. Thou art my blood, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... drastically disciplined by the logically reasoning brain, propagate the majority of troubles that afflict mankind," quoth Chandranath in the manner of one familiar with platform oratory. "Are ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... to the fact that antiquity was acquainted only with theories of oratory and poetry which facilitated production, [Greek: technai] and artes that formed real orators and poets, "while at the present day we shall soon have theories upon which it would be as impossible to build up a speech ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... compact or alliance of opposition. In 1550, therefore, the matter stood thus. The cathedral, and the collegiate and parish churches of St. Peter the Elder and St. Peter the Younger, as well as the Oratory of all Saints, adopted the catholic form of worship. The other parish churches adopted that of the protestant. Yet in 1559 there happened such a serious affray in the cathedral church itself—between the Catholics and Protestants—as taught the former ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... at Roque's insinuations, suddenly turned, and, riding up to him, interrupted the course of his oratory with a smart blow.—"Now, rascal," he said, "if thou darest again to give utterance to any of those ridiculous fears, by Santiago, the Moors shall not be put to the trouble of hanging thee—So ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... unfortunate vegetables were good for nothing but firewood by the time they reached their destination; the humours of the open-air feast of the Republic; the storming of the Assembly by the clubs; the oratory of Malvina (a very delectable morsel) in one of the said clubs devoted to the Rights of Women;[293] the scene where Oscar, coming by his own account from the barricades "with his hands and his feet and his ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... time, that in a small recess, illuminated by a taper, were disposed two hassocks of velvet and gold, corresponding with the bed furniture, before a desk of carved ebony. This recess had formerly been the private oratory of the abbot; but the crucifix was removed, and instead there were placed on the desk, two Books of Common Prayer, richly bound, and embossed with silver. With this enviable sleeping apartment, which was so far removed from every sound save that of the wind sighing ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... portrait of Daniel Webster is taken from a book just issued by the Fowler & Wells Co., New York, entitled, "A Natural System of Elocution and Oratory," founded upon analysis of the Human Constitution. By Thomas A. Hyde and William Hyde. Among other valuable subjects which this book contains is a description and analysis of ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... Holy Land. In daily contact with so many diverse interests, Raphael's mind widened as imperceptibly as the body grows. He learned the manners of many men and committees—admired the genuine goodness of some of the Jewish philanthropists and the fluent oratory of all; even while he realized the pettiness of their outlook and their reluctance to face facts. They were timorous, with a dread of decisive action and definitive speech, suggesting the differential, deprecatory corporeal ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one Verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory This neglect then of Rime so little is to be taken for a defect though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem from ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... forced to change his room, and was to sleep in Mr. Melville's for the present; so her Grace would have to get on without him as well as she could. There would be no Popish mass to-morrow, then, in the oratory that he had heard was made upstairs.... He marvelled at the superstition ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... doth it even now, across the schoolroom—though I have never been permitted to speak word to her since Mother Ada took her from me. And I must smile back again,—ay, however many times I have to lick a cross on the oratory floor for doing it. Why ought I not? Did not our Lord Himself take the little children into His arms? I am sure He must have smiled on them—they would have been frightened if He had ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... and dark passage with the prior's lodging. This was a sort of inferior castellated mansion, with a spacious hall, and a smaller dining-chamber immediately adjoining. At the end was a fair chapel or oratory. Ascending a flight of stone steps, they came to a low door. The conductor knocked, and De Poininges soon found himself in the presence of the proud Prior of Burscough. He wore a square cap of black stuff, after the fashion of his order. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... detractors acquired either by accident of birth and connexions or else by the vile arts of political intrigue. He began at the bottom of the ladder, mixing with the Bohemian society that haunted the Temple, practising oratory in the free and easy debating societies of Covent Garden and the Strand, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... which is but little above the ground, there are two good stories all round the building, and even more in the towers. The dining-room and offices are below, and there is also a small oratory, or chapel, though I believe none of the family live there. The entrance to the principal apartments is opposite the gate, and there is also here an exterior door which communicates directly with the lawn, the ditch running behind the other wing, and in front of the gate only. The great staircase ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... for reading and study which never forsook him. As a young man he diligently attended the chambers of renowned jurisconsults, especially those of the elder and younger Scaevola, Crassus, and Antonius, and soon found that his calling in life was oratory. It was not till he was twenty-eight years old, however—when he had already written much and pleaded many cases—that he went on a visit of between two and three years to Greece, Asia, and Rhodes, to study in the various schools of rhetoric ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... his companion resided for two and a half months, opening an oratory in their house and even making a few Christian converts. But soon they were ordered to leave, and reluctantly they travelled back to China, though by a ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... city of Ardmore. This embraces a beautiful and perfect round tower, a singularly interesting ruined church commonly called the cathedral, the ruins of a second church beside a holy well, a primitive oratory, a couple of ogham inscribed pillar stones, ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... somewhere almost as soon as your handkerchiefs have ceased waving, your soprano hurrahs ceased ringing; or else they are given to some pet officer for a coverlet. They cost a great deal of money; they oblige the poor soldiers to endure a mort of flatulent oratory at a parade rest; and they force the poor colonel, in a great perspiration, to stumble through a few feeble, ineffectual, and disjointed words of thanks, which he committed to memory last night from the original, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... our ruler? Is he not flesh and blood like us? Are not many of us above him?" he may possibly be stating truth. It would have been hard to find any street-lounger more despicable than Bomba or more foolish than poor Louis XVI; but the method of oratory is purely destructive, and it will be much more to the purpose if the street firebrand gives his audience some definite ideas as to the man who ought to be chosen as leader. If we have the faculty for recognizing our best man, all chatter ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... philosophy, oratory and the elements of mathematical science claim as their birthplace the city of Athens, where Paul, the greatest apostle of Jesus Christ, uttered his immortal oration to the Athenians, on the Areopagus ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... the whole of the speech. It was heavy in the extreme, and I confess that I was disappointed and tired long before it was finished. No doubt the speech was full of fact and argument, but it had none of the fire of oratory, or intensity of feeling, that marked ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... further on, she adds that she had conversed with William Wilberforce, the philanthropist, “who disappoints no expectation his imputed eloquence has excited”; and also with the luminous and resistless Lord Chancellor, Thomas Erskine, “whose every sentence is oratory, whose form is graceful, whose voice is music, and whose eye lightens as he speaks.” She corresponded with Dr. William Lort Mansel, when he was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1798, who was well known as a wit, and writer of epigrams, and to whom she was introduced ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin

... labour-question and the race-question and the international question, aroused by the presence of the Chinese within our borders, will from time to time cause agitation and provoke discussion and heated debate and evoke oratory of one kind or another; but the question which should be uppermost in the minds of wise statesmen is how shall they be assimilated to our life? How shall we make them Christians? The answer will be the best solution of the whole matter, if it has in mind ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... blood." Jeremy Taylor, in his splendid sermon on the "Marriage-ring," has a touching reference to the legendary history of Nereus. The church dedicated to the honour of these Christian slaves has many interesting associations. It stands upon the site of a primitive Christian oratory, called Fasciola, because St. Peter was said to have dropped there one of the bandages of his wounds on the way to execution. And its last reconstruction, retaining all the features of the old architecture with the utmost care, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... your acknowledged oratory for a single breathing-space," commanded the Mandarin dispassionately, yet at the same time unostentatiously studying a list that lay within his sleeve. "What was the auspicious name of the ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... that of the Soul, and that my own experience of it, still so imperfect, so fragmentary, when compared with the experience of the highly trained, is like the first struggles of a child learning to speak compared with the perfect oratory of the practised speaker; that consciousness, so far from being dependent on the brain, is more active when freed from the gross forms of matter than when encased within them; that the great Sages spoken ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... scholar; in so many improvements of reason, in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety of studies, in such importunity of thoughts. To find wit in poetry; in philosophy profoundness; in history wonder of events; in oratory, sweet eloquence; in divinity, supernatural light and holy devotion—whom would it ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... depth of thought, closeness of reasoning, and purity of diction, it is more difficult to explain the excitement which the older and far abler man produced than to explain that which attended the younger man's oratory. For Wesley—if we may judge from his printed sermons—carefully eschewed everything that would be called in the present day 'sensational.' Plain, downright common sense, expressed in admirably chosen but studiously simple language, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... late Senator Wolcott, one of the most brilliant orators of his day, who explained why Mr. Lodge's oratory left men cold. Wolcott was commenting on a speech delivered by Lodge a few days earlier and someone said to him that men listened to ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... had retired from the stage, in 1754, he opened that portion of the Piazza-houses, in Covent Garden, afterwards known as the Tavistock Hotel. Here he fitted up a large coffee-room, a theatre for oratory, and other apartments. To a three-shilling ordinary he added a shilling lecture, or "School of Oratory and Criticism;" he presided at the dinner table, and carved for the company; after which he played a sort of "Oracle of Eloquence." ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... they will never get over the habit. Insist that there shall be a service suitable for them parallel to the adult service of worship.[47] Next, try to overcome the present popular obsession regarding the sermon. The church is more than an oratory station. The sermon is only one incident. Many criticisms of the sermon indicate that the critic measures the preacher by ability to entertain, that he attends church to be entertained. If that is essentially ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... white gentleman is not pleasant to me;... but what say you to an idle black gentleman, with his rum bottle in his hand,... no breeches on his body, pumpkin at discretion, and the fruitfullest region of the earth going back to jungle round him?' In a similar vein he dealt with stump oratory, prison reform, and other subjects, tilting in reckless fashion at the shields of the reforming Radicals of the day; nor was he less outspoken when he met in person the champions of these views. A letter to his wife in 1847 tells of a visit ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... Earl of Bedford. In September, 1642, Sir Hugh Pollard wrote to the Earl of Bath: 'The Earl of Bedford is now at Taunton, in want of men and money; he hath sent to his friends Chudleigh, Bampfield, and Northcote, for a supply of both, whose oratory cannot get one trained man to move, nor ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... whether in new and varied industrial employment, in the arts and sciences, in the highest range of literature, in philosophic and mathematical investigations, in the professions of law, medicine, and divinity, in high scholarship, in educational training and supervision, in rhetoric and oratory, in the lyceum, or in discharging the official duties connected with the various departments of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... with Lambert pursuing him and telling him to stop. But Dennison had been careful during the last part of the evening, and had arrived at the state when any one shouting at him made him run all the faster, while Lambert, excited by oratory and the after-effects of it, declared very loudly that he would catch Dennison if he ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... became deeply interested in grand speculations, which gave him a haughty spirit and a lofty style of oratory far removed from vulgarity and low buffoonery, and also an imperturbable gravity of countenance and a calmness of demeanor and appearance which no incident could disturb as he was speaking, while the tone of his voice never showed that he heeded any interruption. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... him with formal precision as Grandfather Garland, never as "Grandad" or "Granpap" as we did in alluding to Hugh McClintock, and his long prayers (pieces of elaborate oratory) wearied us, while those of Grandad, which had the extravagance, the lyrical abandon of poetry, profoundly pleased us. Grandfather's church was a small white building in the edge of the village, Grandad's place of worship was a vision, a cloud-built temple, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... allowed to preach, and they are only permitted to do so now by special licence of the Bishop (see Ordination Service.) St. Augustine has laid down excellent rules for the practice of Christian eloquence. The subject is to be weighty, the style answering to the subject. It was no part of the ancient oratory to raise the affections of the congregation, either by gesticulations, or the use of external shows. Scarcely any of their sermons would last an hour, and many not half the time. Many of St. Augustine's might be preached in eight minutes. They always concluded their sermons, as we do now, ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... loved him dearly, injure his material prospects, he had thrown it all aside, after a grand fashion, that had really made the girl think that all Miss Stanbury's money was as nothing to his love for her. She and Priscilla and her mother had been carried away so entirely by Brooke's oratory as to feel for the time that the difficulties were entirely conquered. But now the aspect of things was so different! Whatever Brooke might owe to Miss Stanbury, she, Dorothy, owed her aunt everything. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... Mr. John Bright fully, one must have heard him. Really to comprehend his power and greatness, one must have heard him at his best. Yet the greatness of his oratory lay not so much in what he said as in the beautiful ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural colours, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and solidity, and when a lamp had been brought, and ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... play. He rose at seven, went to bed at two, crowded the nineteen hours of wakefulness with glorious endeavour. He went all over the country with his flambeau eveilleur, awakening the Youth of England, finding at last the great artistic gift the gods had given him, the gift of oratory. One day he reminded Jane of a talk long ago when he had fled from the studios: "You asked me how I was going to earn my living. I said I was going to follow one ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... rocks and swept through the coves, was beyond the reporter's skill. Here heaven touched earth; eternity overlapped time; glory overspread the worshipers. These were days when that which is most sacred, awful, and sublime burdened men's souls. Here holy oratory distilled like dew, breathed like zephyrs, crashed like storms, leaped like devouring flames. The recorded sermons of these ministers are yet regarded as the very ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... vastly popular. When Nelson Haley, urged by the elder, made his first speech in the campaign, Polktown awoke as never before to the fact that their schoolmaster had a gift of oratory not previously suspected. ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... from the site of the old Priory of Ardchattan, near Loch Etive, may still be seen the remains of his first oratory. It bears the name of Balmodhan (St. Modan's Town); a few paces from its ruins is a clear spring called St. Modan's Well, and hither within the memory of persons still living came many a pilgrimage in ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett

... harm came to his knowledge; so he said, "By Allah! God's earth is wide enough for its people;" and, leaving the neighbourhood, he repaired to another city where he bought himself a piece of land in which was a dried up draw well,[FN218] old and in ruinous condition. Here he built him an oratory and, furnishing it with a few necessaries, took up his abode therein, and devoted himself to prayer and worshipping Allah Almighty; and Fakirs and holy mendicants docked to him from all quarters; and his fame went abroad through the city and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... floor of a small oratory adjoining "the chapel" (now a bedroom) at Borwick Hall, Lancashire, has an opening devised much in the same fashion as that at Oxburgh. By leaning his weight upon a certain portion of the boards, a fugitive could slide into a convenient gap, while ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea

... happiness of the bride. It was drunk with enthusiasm. The general gave them the United States, the sister republic to the north, and spoke affectingly of his desire to promote a better feeling between the countries by this marriage. The host had not expected his poker party to develop so much oratory, but he rose briefly to the occasion. The subject of his remarks was, ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... are to follow these implied facts are to follow them—But how? With a strong probability. If you have a mind to study this Oriental figure of rhetoric, the painche, here it is for you in its most complete perfection. No rhetorician ever gave an example of any figure of oratory that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... since! Here his Worship, supported by Earl Vane, Capt. E. L. Pryse, M.P., Mr. Thomas Barnes, M.P., Capt. R. D. Pryce, the Contractors, Engineers, and many other ardent workers for or well-wishers of the undertaking, presided over a flow of oratory, the report of which occupied over five columns of the newspapers, and visions of a new Aberystwyth swam before the eyes of the guests, wonderful and beatific! Such, indeed, was the sumptuousness of the repast, and the wealth of oratory, that it was ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... three days Miss Duncan and Dr. Hepburn, instructors, respectively, in English and Latin, and Dr. Darrow, professor of Oratory and Dramatic Expression, had been interviewed and had consented to act as judges. The moment these preliminaries had been attended to, Gertrude Wells had begun an elaborate poster to hang above the bulletin board ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... says Addison, "has sprinkled several of his works with them; and in his book on Oratory, quotes abundance of sayings as pieces of wit, which, upon examination, prove arrant puns."—'Essay on ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... Amiternum, in the country of the Sabines (to the north-east of Rome), and died four years before the battle of Actium—that is, in B.C. 34 or 35. After having no doubt gone through a complete course of law and the art of oratory, he devoted himself to the service of the Roman republic at a time when Rome was internally divided by the struggle of the opposite factions of the optimates, or the aristocracy, and the populares, or the democratical party. The optimates supported the power of ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)

... their first bloom veiled the vista of the long corridor, and made the staring blue sky, seen through narrow windows and loopholes, glitter like mirrors let into the walls. The chamber assigned to the young ladies seemed half oratory and half sleeping-room, with a strange mingling of the convent in the bare white walls, hung only with crucifixes and religious emblems, and of the seraglio in the glimpses of lazy figures, reclining in the deshabille of short silken saya, low camisa, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... feature of the collection is the introduction of those masterpieces of oratory—long excluded from books of this class, though now rendered appropriate by the new phase of public opinion,which advocate the inalienable rights of man, and denounce the crime of human bondage. Aware of the deep and lasting ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... Osmond! they have put hangings up all round the walls, just like our Lady's church on a great feast-day. They treat us just as if we were the holy saints; and here are fresh rushes strewn about the floor, too. This must be a mistake—it must be an oratory, instead of ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge

... poetry, I own, if Nature has not given it you, you cannot have it, for it is a true maxim that Poeta nascitur non fit. It is much otherwise with oratory, and the maxim there is Orator fit, for it is certain that by study and application every man can make himself a pretty good orator, eloquence depending upon observation and care. Every man, if he pleases, may choose good words instead of bad ones, may speak properly instead of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Charles Lamb and Monkhouse. 'Wordsworth was in fine cue,' writes Haydon, 'and we had a glorious set-to-on Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Virgil. Lamb got exceedingly merry, and exquisitely witty, and his fun, in the midst of Wordsworth's solemn intonations of oratory, was like the sarcasm and wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear's passion.' Although the specimens of wit recorded no longer seem inspired, we can well believe Haydon's statement that it was an immortal evening, and that in ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... as an orator, a lecturer, and an essayist, having contributed to several of the leading journals and magazines of the country. His oratory was not of the cold and unimpassioned kind which falls upon the ears but fails to make an impression on the heart. He did not lose sight of the fact that the chief end and aim of oratory is to arouse men to a sense of duty, deter them from ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... continually to things that would stir his passions, and I would discuss with him how he should talk to people so as to get them to regard his wishes favourably. But Emile is not in a condition so favourable to the art of oratory. Concerned mainly with his physical well-being, he has less need of others than they of him; and having nothing to ask of others on his own account, what he wants to persuade them to do does not affect him sufficiently to awake any very ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... about twenty American organizations here—big, little, rag-tag, and bobtail. When we declared war, every one of 'em proceeded to prepare for some sort of celebration. There would have been an epidemic of Fourth-of-July oratory all over the town—before we'd done anything—Americans spouting over the edges and killing Kruger with their mouths. I got representatives of 'em all together and proposed that we hold our tongues till we'd won the war—then we can take London. And to ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... themselves to baseball, the girls to boating, and all got rosy, stout, and strong, in these healthful exercises. In winter, the lads had their debating club, the lasses a dramatic ditto. At the former, astonishing bursts of oratory were heard; at the latter, everything was boldly attempted, from Romeo and Juliet to Mother Goose's immortal melodies. The two clubs frequently met and mingled their attractions in a really entertaining ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... Georgia,[4] and with wonderful adroitness practised on the different feelings of his red brethren. Assuming at times the character of a prophet, he wrought powerfully on their credulity and superstition.—Again, depending on the force of oratory, the witchery of his eloquence drew many [33] to his standard. But all was in vain—His plans were entirely frustrated. He had brought none of his auxiliaries into the field; and was totally unprepared for hostilities, when his brother, the celebrated Shawanese ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... what may be called happy, and my child will be protected and educated. My child! what is there which I ought to put in the balance against her? If our sympathy is not complete, I have my own little oratory: I can keep the candles alight, close the ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... name upon St. Philip's feast-day; and, having done so, to whom can I more suitably offer it, as a memorial of affection and gratitude, than to St. Philip's sons, my dearest brothers of this House, the Priests of the Birmingham Oratory, Ambrose St. John, Henry Austin Mills, Henry Bittleston, Edward Caswall, William Paine Neville, and Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder? who have been so faithful to me; who have been so sensitive of my needs; who have been so indulgent to my failings; ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... (vulgarisirenden Hausirer) come in for a great deal of contempt at the hands of Engels. These were the popular materialists—"the blatant atheists," who, without scientific knowledge and gifted with mere oratory or a popular style of writing, used every advance of science as a weapon of attack upon the Creator and popular religion. Engels sneers at these as not being scientists at all, but mere tradesmen dealing in pseudo-scientific wares. He calls their ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels

... imposing a tax which the clergy were unwilling to submit to. This too was tested in the courts, and a young lawyer named Patrick Henry defended so eloquently the right of Virginia to make her own laws in spite of the king, that his passionate oratory inflamed all that colony ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... doubt, the ambition of Lord Byron to acquire distinction as well in oratory as in poesy; but Nature seems to set herself against pluralities in fame. He had prepared himself for this debate,—as most of the best orators have done, in their first essays,—not only by composing, but writing down, the whole of his speech beforehand. The ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... had it been her lot to see a man look less enthusiastic under public and favorable comment of himself. She wondered if he, also, remembered the Muggleton cricket match and the subsequent dinner oratory. ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... the great body of the New England people were with him, as were the voters of his own district. He was an old man, with the physical infirmities of age. His eyes were weak and streaming; his hands were trembling; his voice cracked in moments of excitement; yet in that age of oratory, in the days of Webster and Clay, he was known as the "old man eloquent." It was what he said, more than the way he said it, which told. His vigorous mind never worked more surely and clearly than when he stood alone in the midst of an angry ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... you make a mistake. Money-getting doesn't always come with brilliancy. I know a lot of fellows in New York who can paint a great picture, write a good play, and, when it comes to oratory, they've got me lashed to a pole; but they're always in debt. They never get anything for what they do. In other words, young man, they are like a sky-rocket without a stick,—plenty of brilliancy, but no direction, and they blow up and fizzle all ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter



Words linked to "Oratory" :   speech, epideictic oratory, valedictory oration, nomination, valedictory address, valedictory, oratorical, stump speech, salutatory oration, nominating speech, nominating address, oration, salutatory address, salutatory, address, keynote address, keynote speech, valediction, declamation



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