Jeremy Bentham
But away with these figures of speech: they are troublesome to manage, and have been worn to rags. Unhappily, there is no such thing as speaking – nor even thinking – without such figures.
This website aims to help anyone improve the artistic persuasiveness of their spoken and written communications.
Rhetoric is one of the oldest and deepest wells of human knowledge. Great communicators - from Cicero to Shakespeare to Churchill - persuade because they took the time to study and apply the art of persuasion: rhetoric.
Here you will find essential classical and contemporary figures of speech, rhetorical schemes and tropes arranged in four accessible categories or alphabetically.
We can all communicate more persuasively by studying the figures and using them to engage and delight our readers and listeners. But we should know three things.
See also the style exemplars and further resources.
Rhetoric is one of the oldest and deepest wells of human knowledge. Great communicators - from Cicero to Shakespeare to Churchill - persuade because they took the time to study and apply the art of persuasion: rhetoric.
Here you will find essential classical and contemporary figures of speech, rhetorical schemes and tropes arranged in four accessible categories or alphabetically.
We can all communicate more persuasively by studying the figures and using them to engage and delight our readers and listeners. But we should know three things.
See also the style exemplars and further resources.