"Debater" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him, in memory of the efforts he made on their behalf, a fine group in bronze of a female figure—"Greece" throwing off the bonds of Turkey. Some of the speakers were very interesting. He found Schouvaloff always a brilliant debater—he spoke French perfectly, was always good-humoured and courteous, and defended his cause well. One felt there was a latent animosity between the English and the Russians. Lord Beaconsfield made one or ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... high-minded but mistaken idea of his duty. Somewhat lacking in imagination though he was, Alexander Mackenzie had in him the stuff out of which party leaders are made. He was a man of vigour and ability, a hard-hitting debater, a thoroughgoing democrat, and he had a well-earned reputation for downright frankness and unswerving honesty which could easily have rallied the country's trust and affection. But while prime minister he gave to the details of departmental administration the care and thought and time ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... already an elder at the chapel Daddy frequented; the two made acquaintance and Lomax became Purcell's assistant. At the moment the trade offered to him attracted Daddy vastly. He had considerable pretensions to literature; was a Shakespearian, a debater, and a haunter of a certain literary symposium, held for a long time at one of the old Manchester inns, and attended by most of the small wits and poets of a then small and homely town. The gathering had nothing saintly about it; free drinking went often hand in hand with free thought; Daddy's ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... qualities necessary to debate: concentration, the power of pouncing upon the weak spot in his adversary’s argument, and above all a wonderful memory. What he lacked was that calm and calculating frigidity so necessary to the successful debater. Instead of freezing his opponent to silence with deliberate logic, he would strive rather by the tempestuous quality of his rhetoric to hurl him into ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Another debater of marked ability in this body is Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He is the third son of William Wilberforce, the celebrated philanthropist, but by no means inherits the simplicity of character and singular absence of all personal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the 13th of the same month Fox expired in London, amiable and beloved to the last day of his life; ardently devoted to his friends, to freedom, to all noble and generous causes; a great orator and a great debater; feeble in his political conduct even in opposition, incapable of governing and of sustaining the great struggle which for so long agitated Europe. At his death the party of resistance resumed power in England. In Germany ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... man of that generation, both the victim and the hero of his time—a man who is almost a Titan in word and a pigmy in deed. He is eloquent as a young Demosthenes. An irresistible debater, he carries everything before him the moment he appears. But he fails ignominiously when put to the hard test of action. Yet he is not an impostor. His enthusiasm is contagious because it is sincere, and his eloquence ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... to reflect that among his contemporary admirers Dale was credited with an intellect of unusual clarity, for the examination of any of his plays impresses one with the number and mutual destructiveness of his motives for artistic expression. A noted debater, he made frequent use of the device of attacking the weakness of the other man's speech, rather than the weakness of the other man's argument. His prose was good, though at its best so impersonal that it recalled the manner of an ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... give all the important information they contained. He made himself an excellent English scholar, and before he was twenty years of age was a constant contributor to Western newspapers, and was also, from that time until he was fifty years old, an able debater in the societies for this purpose, which were common in the West at that time. He always took an active part in politics, but was never a candidate for office, except, I believe, that he was the first Mayor of Georgetown. He supported Jackson for the Presidency; but he was a ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... the market admitted, by shrewdly playing on his hot temper. A third was a tall gaunt old man of New England type, obstinate, honest, but of sanguine temperament. He was always on the bull side of the market and a loud debater.—The fourth, a quiet little man of smooth ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... but laugh at the sketch of a debate given with all the mimicry of tone and mock solemnity of an old debater, and the two men now became, by the bond of their ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... more circumscribed sphere of the local Presbytery, a single rival who is in any sense his match. The late Dr. Gibson was frequently accustomed to tackle him, and perhaps he sometimes did so successfully; but while the latter was undoubtedly an able debater, he lost ground from his impetuosity of temper—an infirmity to which Dr. Buchanan never gives way. In all circumstances he is cool, calculating, unruffled; he measures the full meaning and effect of every sentence; he can be fierce and withering, and still maintain a calm and composed ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... of freedom,—to infuse and circulate the spirit of liberty." He made it a point to speak on every question that came up, whether interested in it or not, as a means of exercising and training his faculties, for he was bent on making himself a powerful debater. His love of argument was perhaps the most striking trait of his character, and "he rose," said Mr. Burke, "by slow degrees to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw." There was nothing ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... first degree at King's College, Cambridge, in 1700. He entered parliament almost immediately after, became an active member, sat on several committees, and soon distinguished himself for his industry and ability. He was not eloquent, but acquired considerable skill as a debater. In 1705, Lord Godolphin, the prime minister of Anne, made him one of the council to Prince George of Denmark; in 1706, Marlborough selected him as secretary of war; in 1709, he was made treasurer of the navy; and in 1710, he was the acknowledged leader of the House of Commons. He ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... one of the best lawyers of the Mississippi Valley. He was a Kentuckian by birth, and, as a lawyer, was a very great man. Douglas was a great statesman and a leader of men; a great debater, but, in my opinion, not a great lawyer. The law is a jealous mistress; there are no great lawyers who do not give undivided attention to its study, and Douglas devoted much ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... the Constitution before the hostile convention at Poughkeepsie, he had before him as arduous a task as ever fell to the lot of a parliamentary debater. It was a case where political management was out of the question. The opposition were too numerous to be silenced, or cajoled, or bargained with. They must be converted. With an eloquence scarcely equalled before or since in America until Webster's voice was heard, Hamilton ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... fighting the battle of the offended and the weak; in manhood, he was always protecting the fugitive from an angry mob; as a lawyer, saving the widow's son from the gallows, and declining the rich fee of an unrighteous cause; as a public debater, the fairest ever met in the political arena; and as president of the republic, honest in his convictions and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... crowd, and accepted the fact demurely, as if it were a matter of course, not a dream come true. Just as discreetly she conducted her affair with Neil Donovan, captain-elect of the team, literary editor of the school paper, star debater, and in his way a creditable conquest, if she had cared ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... on the question tantamount to that of setting himself up as a competitor to the Prince." Such inconsiderate violence gave a great advantage to Pitt, one of whose most useful characteristics as a debater was a readiness and presence of mind that nothing could discompose. He repelled such menaces and imputations with an equally lofty scorn, and, after a few necessary preliminaries, brought forward a ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... practice of showing Jesus's skill as a debater, makes him play a less passive part at his trial, he still gives substantially the same account of it as all the rest. And the question that would occur to any modern reader never occurs to him, any ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... foregoing rules of order have been mainly condensed from that excellent work, "The American Debater," by James N. McElligott, LL.D., to which the reader is referred for a complete exposition of the whole subject of debating. Published by Ivison and Phinney, New York, and for sale by Fowler ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... so much to him as speechifying. He was not a diplomatist such as Beaconsfield, a tactician like Mr. Gladstone, a fearless, dashing debater like Lord Derby the elder, "The Rupert of Debate"; nor had he the weight of Lord Salisbury, nor the aestheticism of Mr. Balfour. But as a mere voice in the political opera he had a charm above them all. In appearance he was commonplace compared with these others I have mentioned. Often the most ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... to run when he walks alone, and to be stately, slow, regal, and precise when, like Fadladeen, he is in charge of Lalla Rookh. Is a man of determination, and never sleeps with his clothes on. Is a sharp debater, a briskly-pompous, eloquent talker, has had a good deal of trouble at time and time in putting on his kid gloves, which used to fit so mortally tight that he couldn't stir his thumbs in them; stands with a fine ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... resources as a debater, and by no means unwilling to see Hozier "taken down a peg," as he phrased it; eager, too, to witness the Brazilian officer's discomfiture if the second mate "handed it to him," thought it ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... explorers. I value a man mainly for his primary relations with truth, as I understand truth,—not for any secondary artifice in handling his ideas. Some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not trust the counsel of a smart debater, any more than that of a good chess-player. Either may of course advise wisely, but not necessarily because ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... men of far inferior capacity, whose names are hardly known beyond the precincts of their courts or the boundaries of their circuits. As a statesman he is not considered eligible for the highest offices, and however he may be admired or feared as an orator or debater, he neither commands respect by his character nor inspires confidence by his genius, and in this contrast between his pretensions and his situation more humble abilities may find room for consolation and cease to contemplate with envy his immense superiority. To suppose that his ambition ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... aforesaid be chosen by the chair. Of course," she went on less formally, turning to the girls, "that is by far the quickest way, and Jean knows the girls as a whole so well—much better than any of us, I'm sure. I think that a lot depends on choosing just the right person for our debater, and we ought not to trust to a ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... though open in many respects to ridicule, and even to serious censure, was no contemptible man. His parts were quick, his industry unwearied, his reading various and most extensive. He was at once a historian, an antiquary, a theologian, a preacher, a pamphleteer, a debater, and an active political leader; and in every one of these characters made himself conspicuous among able competitors. The many spirited tracts which he wrote on passing events are now known only to the curious: but his History of his own Times, his History ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... adviser affirmer aider almoner annoyer arbiter assenter asserter bailer caster censer (vessel) concocter condenser conferrer conjurer consulter continuer contradicter contriver convener conveyer corrupter covenanter debater defender deliberater deserter desolater deviser discontinuer disturber entreater exalter exasperater exciter executer (except in law) expecter frequenter granter idolater imposer impugner incenser inflicter insulter interceder ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... at Cambridge; he had given up classics, and was working at theology, with a view to taking Orders. He managed to secure a Third in the Tripos; he showed no intellectual promise whatever; he was a very lively and amusing companion and a keen debater; I think he wrote a little poetry; but he had no very pronounced tastes. I remember his pointing out to me the windows of an extremely unattractive set of ground-floor rooms in Whewell's Court as those which he had occupied ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as constant, as overmastering in Fox as they were in Burke. No man was ever more deeply imbued with the generous impulses of great statesmanship, with chivalrous courage, with the magnificent spirit of devotion to high imposing causes. These qualities we may be sure, and not his power as a debater and as a declaimer, won for him in Burke's heart the admiration which found such splendid expression in a passage that will remain as a stock piece of declamation for long generations after it was first ...
— Burke • John Morley
... than the flowers of spring. Allan Dunlop's fame as a politician had grown concurrently with the growth of his love. In the Legislature he had won for himself a prominent position, and was known as a sagacious counsellor, a persuasive speaker, a ready and effective debater, and a good steady worker on Committees. No name carried more weight in Parliament than his, and his influence in the country was as marked as was his influence in the House. This was as readily conceded by his political opponents as it was claimed by his friends. ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... mind complete your arc into the perfection of a circle, I cannot place it about your head as a halo. My confusion comes from thinking of you more than of my creed. A pregnant factor in our debate is the debater. The Hafiz of the Hafiz maxims, the philosopher of your philosophy happens to interest me. You have been building yourself up before my eyes, and for watching ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... and cons; a newspaper reader's and debater's guide to the leading controversies of the day, political, social, religious, etc.; ed. ...
— Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Debate Index - Second Edition • Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
... parts of the country to be present at the State fair which was held there that week. On Capitol Hill, therefore, an immense throng was early assembled, which coldly awaited the arrival of the orator. Everything was chilly and unfavorable. But the spirit of the obstinate debater seemed to rise with the difficulties by which he was surrounded. At first even his manner of speaking operated to his disadvantage. The sharp, syllabic emphasis, which he was accustomed to adopt in addressing large assemblages ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... paints the objects in the scene itself, their colours and traits, their forms and substance, their lights and shadows. A painter following exactly what he portrays, would make a glorious gallery of landscapes. He is, moreover, a charming poet, an eloquent debater, and has written many able and important works on politics; yet we never recollect, during the last twenty years, to have heard his name mentioned in English society except once, when an old and caustic, but most able judge, now no more, said, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... of State, Managers of Colonial Establishments, of Home and Foreign Government interests, have really and truly to do in Parliament, might admit of various estimate in these times. An apt debater in Parliament is by no means certain to be an able administrator of Colonies, of Home or Foreign Affairs; nay, rather quite the contrary is to be presumed of him; for in order to become a "brilliant speaker," if that is his character, considerable portions of his ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... most successful, afforded no fair measure of his oratorical powers, and that, in an assembly of which the debates were frequent and animated, he would have attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible to listen to his conversation without seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his uncle, the exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With the greatest good nature and good breeding, he was the very opposite to an assenter. The word "disputatious" is generally used as a word of reproach; but we can express our meaning only by saying that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... discovered that his high office was not a bed of roses. "The premiership had for twelve years been a bed of slumber; it now fell into the hands of one who made it a bed of feverish anxiety and bitter wakefulness,—George Canning, the first debater, the most dexterous politician, and the happiest wit of the house; the most perplexed, unhappy, and disappointed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... above the average. There were but few subjects on which he could not converse with understanding and a dash of wit; delivering himself slowly and with gusto like a man who enjoyed his own sententiousness. He was a dry, quick, pertinent debater, speaking with a small voice, and swinging on his heels to launch and emphasise an argument. When he began a discussion, he could not bear to leave it off, but would pick the subject to the bone, without once relinquishing a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with Arundel Dacre. He rose the first night that he took his seat (a great disadvantage, of which no one was more sensible than himself), and for an hour and a half he addressed the fullest House that had long been assembled, with the self-possession of an habitual debater. His clenching argument, and his luminous detail, might have been expected from one who had the reputation of having been a student. What was more surprising was, the withering sarcasm that blasted like the simoom, the brilliant sallies ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... the Senate. The almost omnipotent power wielded for the destruction of the Black Battalion by the formidable occupant of the executive mansion was met and matched, ay, overmatched again and again by an omnipotence in discussion which a just cause and genius as orator, lawyer, and debater of the first rank could alone have put into the strong right arm of the brave redresser of a race's wrongs on the floor of the Senate. For more than two years he carried the case of the Black Battalion in his big and tireless brain, in his big and gentle ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... only by degrees that he acquires the ability to utter a phrase, and at last a short sentence, without interruption. Nature prompts the child to this exercise, which from the first attempt, to the full flow of eloquence in the extemporaneous debater, consists simply in commanding and managing one set of ideas in the mind, at the moment the person is giving utterance to others. This cannot be done by the child, but it is gradually acquired by the man; and we shall see in its proper place, that this acquisition is ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... indulged, if he did indulge, his bachelor mal-practices. Speaking of them as a set, the chief offender was Mr. Harold Smith, or perhaps his wife. He also was a member of Parliament, and, as many thought, a rising man. His father had been for many years a debater in the House, and had held high office. Harold, in early life, had intended himself for the Cabinet; and if working hard at his trade could ensure success, he ought to obtain it sooner or later. He had already ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Reynolds Bartram. He offered a short, spasmodic, disjointed prayer to heaven, for he remembered what the judge's wife had said, and he had known Reynolds Bartram as a young man of keen wit and high standing as a debater before Sam's enforced retirement; now, he knew, Bartram ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... A Parliamentary debater describing the Church of England wound up in a flowery conclusion thus: "I see the Church of England rising in the land, with one foot firmly planted in the soil, the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... not me," he replied. "You—Sir Julien Portel, caricatured as the best-dressed man in the House of Commons, member of the most fashionable clubs, brilliant debater, successful politician, future Prime Minister, and all that sort of twaddle. You were living too far up in the clouds, my friend, to come down here. You see, I am not offering you much sympathy, Julien. I don't think you need it. You were soaring up to the skies just because of your gifts ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... those who will oppose it the most are those whom he has been voting with and assisting to ruin this country for the last ten years at least." Selwyn underrated the need for Fox's great abilities in office; so powerful a debater could not be used by a party in opposition only. But he certainly expressed a feeling which existed in the ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Parliamentarian, a brilliant debater and a famous Irish Secretary in difficult times, but his political energies lay in tactics. He took a Puck-like pleasure in watching the game of party politics, not in the interests of any particular political party, nor from esprit de corps, but ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... did not admit him into the Cabinet. Lumley, burning with resentment, longed to decline the offer; but, alas! he was poor, and, what was worse, in debt; "his poverty, but not his will, consented." He was reinstated; but though prodigiously improved as a debater, he felt that he had not advanced as a public man. His ambition inflamed by his discontent, he had, since his return to office, strained every nerve to strengthen his position. He met the sarcasms on his poverty by greatly increasing his expenditure, and by advertising everywhere his engagement ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... occasional disappointments; even an occasional unfairness for his companions, who find themselves one day giving too much, and the next, when they are wary out of season, giving perhaps too little. Purcel is in another class from any I have mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, one of which I admire and fear, and the other love. In the first, he is radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly hilltop, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... storm he burst on the Senate and the Country. "Freedom national: slavery sectional" was his theme. Like all of Mr. Sumner's speeches, this speech was carefully written out and largely memorized. He was deficient in the qualities of the great debater, was not able usually and easily to think quickly and effectively on his feet, to give and take hard blows within the short range of extemporaneous and hand to hand encounters. Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams were pre-eminent in this species ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... period in the history of Buddhism in Japan, prolonged public discussions were all the fashion. Priests traveled from temple to temple to engage in public debate. The ablest debater was the abbot, and he had to be ready to face any opponent who might appear. If a stranger won, the abbot yielded his place and his living to the victor. Many an interesting story is told of those times, and of the crowds that would gather to hear the debates. But our point ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... a parliamentary debater he had few, if any, superiors. In knowledge and dexterity there was no one in the House that could be compared with him. He was literally a walking cyclopedia. He was terrible in invective, matchless at repartee, and insensible to ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... assumed office, and Lord Campbell was recalled from the occupation which had proved so congenial to his mind, to take a seat in the ministry as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. While he held this position, he was a frequent and popular debater in the House of Peers, where he zealously defended the policy of the government. In 1850, Lord Chief Justice Denman retired from the King's Bench, ripe in years and in honorable renown, and Lord Campbell was at once designated as his successor. In this exalted place, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... paid no attention to these words, and gave them no answer. He was much too old a debater to be misled by such trifles, when he needed all his faculties to pin his opponent to the wall. ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... disappear. Not so, however, with Ungque. He was a demagogue, after an Indian fashion; and this is a class of men that ever "make capital" of abuses, as we Americans say, in our money-getting habits. Instead of being frightened off the ground, he arose to answer as promptly as if a practised debater, though with an air of humility so profound, that no one could take offence at ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... absorbing love of God which is to be seen in some of the greatest souls. Morality became to her a religion, not so intense as with saints and prophets, but more sympathetic and ardent than with most ethical teachers. She was no stoic, no teacher of moral precepts, no didactic debater about moral duties, no mere dilettante advocate of human rights. She was a warm, tender, yearning, sympathetic, womanly friend of individuals, who hoped great things for humanity, and who believed that man can find happiness and true culture ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... set out very well, and have sufficient encouragement to go on. Attend; therefore, assiduously, and observe carefully all that passes in the House; for it is only knowledge and experience that can make a debater. But if you still want comfort, Mrs.———-I hope, will administer it to you; for, in my opinion she may, if she will, be very comfortable; and with women, as with speaking in parliament, perseverance will most ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... has many merits, but it has a manifest tendency to encourage short views. The immediate party interest becomes so absorbing that men find it difficult to look greatly beyond it. The desire of a skilful debater to use the topics that will most influence the audience before him, or the desire of a party leader to pursue the course most likely to be successful in an immediately impending contest, will often ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... in imagination, metaphor, and epigram; and to open the doors of the official hierarchy to George Canning. Trained by Pitt, and in many gifts and graces his superior, Canning first displayed his full greatness after the death of his illustrious master. For twenty years he was the most accomplished debater in the House of Commons, and yet he never succeeded in winning the full confidence of the nation, nor, except in foreign affairs, in leaving his mark upon our national policy. "The English are afraid of genius," and ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... than thirty years, he spent all the spare time of an exceedingly happy life. Then we may jump some fifteen years to the great Reform contest which gave Jeffrey the reward, such as it was, of his long constancy in opposition, in the shape of the Lord Advocateship. He was not always successful as a debater; but he had the opportunity of adding a third reputation to those which he had already gained in literature and in law. He had the historical duty of piloting the Scotch Reform Bill through Parliament, and he had the, in his case, pleasurable and honourable ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... was to become a great political orator and debater, in which at last he succeeded. His mental agility was manifest in his reply to an elector whom he had canvassed for a vote, and who offered him a halter instead. "Oh thank you," said Fox, "I would not deprive you of what is evidently a ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... 1804, he repaired to the famous Law School at Litchfield in Connecticut, where he remained a year and a half, and won general esteem. Tradition reports him a diligent student and an admirable debater there. As to his moral conduct, that was always irreproachable. That is to say, he was at every period of his life continent, temperate, orderly, and out of debt. In 1806, being then twenty-four years of age, he returned to South Carolina, and, after studying a short time in a law office at Charleston, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... said a fresh debater in a faint voice, as no less a person than the captain joined in the discussion. "You are all worn-out. We sick folk have sharp ears, and ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... at all. A man named Massey, one of its redoubtable debaters, though a little, slim, insignificant-looking person, sent a messenger up into this county and challenged the opposition to debate with him. They didn't quite like the idea, but they were too proud to decline, so they put up their best debater, a big, good-natured man whom everybody was familiar with as "Tom," and it was arranged that Massey should have the first hour and that Tom Whatever-his-name-was should succeed him the next hour. When the occasion came, Massey, with his characteristic ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... leader of the minority, had been for twelve years a member of the House, having been first elected at the age of thirty-three. He was a brilliant debater, well versed in parliamentary law, and at all points fully equipped for the conflict. With the exception of Henry Clay, the House of Representatives has probably never known his equal as a party leader. ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... him to do subsequently: stated with lucidity the arguments of the other side, and with the air of one quite open-minded, without opinions of his own, seemed to seek my arguments in rebuttal. I was sorely disappointed by what then seemed to me his negative attitude, so unlike the militant debater whom I had come to admire in the campaign which had recently been brought to a brilliant and victorious close. In my youthful impetuosity I felt that we had been deceived in our man, a bold talker but timid in action. I simply did not ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... offers no panacea (as the title might seem to imply). Logic will not make a dunce a philosopher, neither will it insure success where success is not deserved. But what he does offer the honest debater in this practical book, is to put him in possession of those laws of argumentation which lie at the bottom of sound reasoning, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... pratitantrasiddhanta; (3) those which being accepted other conclusions will also naturally follow called adhikara@nasiddhanta; (4) those of the opponent's views which are uncritically granted by a debater, who proceeds then to refute the consequences that follow and thereby show his own special skill and bring the opponent's intellect to disrepute (abhyupagamasiddhanta) [Footnote ref 4]. The ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... Republicans. A scathing criticism of the President's position by Henry Winter Davis, which was signed by himself and Senator Wade, fitly echoed their feelings. Mr. Davis was a man of genius. Among the famous men in the Thirty- eighth Congress he had no superior as a writer, debater and orator. He was a brilliant man, whose devotion to his country in this crisis was a passion, while his hostility to the President's policy was as sincere as it was intense; but the passage of the somewhat incongruous bill vetoed by the President, would probably have proved ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... went with the more confidence to the House on the appointed evening, and was placed under the gallery, on the right, where he listened to Roebuck and followed the debate with such enjoyment as an experienced debater feels in these contests, until, as he said, he became aware that a man, with a singularly rich voice and imposing manner, had taken the floor, and was giving Roebuck the most deliberate and tremendous pounding he ever ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... war of words began, which speedily waged so hot that the pipes of both combatants went out, and old John Potter found it necessary to assume the part of peace-maker, in which, being himself a keen debater, he failed, and there is no saying what might have been the result of it if old Martha had not brought the action to a summary close by telling her visitors in shrill tones to "hold their noise." This they did after laughing heartily at the old woman's fierce ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... FLYNN. TIM HEALY thinks he's pretty smart as a debater; SEXTON believes he knows a thing or two; O'BRIEN is understood to be something of an orator. FLYNN will show House how all these qualities may be combined in one man. Does it by the tiresome twenty minutes, the lamentable half-hour; popping up on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... less a popular leader of the people. In appearance he was a typical aristocrat, and his expression, notwithstanding his fine forehead and thoughtful eyes, was marked with a certain simplicity which in his younger days had lured many an inexperienced debater on to ridicule and extinction. In an intensely curious age, Dartrey was still a man over whose personality controversy raged fiercely. He was a poet, a dreamer, a writer of elegant prose, an orator, an artist. And behind all these things there was a flame in the man, ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... great force as a debater is less, perhaps, in the matter than in the manner. His delivery is good and his gestures cannot fail to convince the most skeptical. Striking in appearance, aggressive in his nature, and happy in his gestures, he is certain to attract the attention of the police, and he cannot fail to rivet the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... twenty years old. During the American Revolution, he favored the colonies; later, he was a friend and fellow-partisan both with Burke and Wilberforce. Burke said of him, "He is the most brilliant and successful debater the world ever saw." In his later years, Mr. Fox was as remarkable for carelessness in dress and personal appearance, as he had been for the opposite in his youth. He possessed many pleasing traits ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... go unmolested through an entire campaign, while a friendly old man was shot from behind while milking his cow. The town was near the edge of the woods and no one was secure. The fine character whom we greatly respected,—the debater of original pronunciation,—who had never wronged a human being of any race, was shot down from the woods ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... heard my brother-in-law, Dr. Duncan, say he would not be surprised if some day Abe Lincoln got to be Governor of Illinois. Lincoln," Mr. Burner adds, "was thought to know a little more than anybody else among the young people. He was a good debater, and liked it. He read much, and seemed ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... were in a majority in the Senate, led on by Clay and Webster. These were confronted by Forsyth, Benton, and Wright: the wrestle was that of giants. The world, perhaps, never furnished a more adroit debater than John Forsyth. He was the Ajax Telemon of his party, and was rapidly rivalling the first in the estimation of that party. He hated Calhoun, and at times was at no pains to conceal it in debate. In the warmth of debate, upon one occasion, he alluded in severe terms, to the manner in ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... on Aniwa was Nerwa, a keen debater, all whose thoughts ran in the channels of logic. When I could speak a little of their language I visited and preached at his village; but the moment he discovered that the teaching about Jehovah was opposed to their Heathen customs, he sternly ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... debater never rose to heights of eloquence. His thorough and practical mind enabled him to study, sift, and give form and substance to the broad political and economic conceptions of more idealistic men. Inheriting the narrow political creed of his father, he can scarcely be blamed if his mind came slowly ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... were, in a certain sense, fought over again. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was carefully prepared, and presented the Southern side in a tone of dignity and confidence; but the reply of Douglas exhibited his superiority as a debater. Breckinridge had declared that whatever settlement be made of other questions, there must be a concession to the South of the right to emigrate into all the Territories, or at least an equitable partition of the National Domain. In ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... he was urgently invited to accept charge of an important congregation in Antrim; and after an interval of two years, mostly spent in further study in Dublin, he was ordained there on the 8th of August 1703. Here he did notable work, both as a debater in the synods and assemblies of his church and as an evangelist. In 1712 he lost his wife (Susannah Jordan), and the loss desolated his life for many years. In 1717 he was invited to the congregation of Usher's Quay, Dublin, and contemporaneously to what was called the Old Congregation ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a criminal offence to aid or encourage a runaway slave. The slavery question was being sharply discussed in all quarters, and began to color and modify the politics of the day. Anderson was a sharp, ready, and formidable debater, and was the most prominent Colored man in that section of the country. He was gifted in the use of good English, had an easy flow of language, was master of the most galling satire, quick in repartee, prompt to see a weak point and use it ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... not only as a brilliant young lawyer, but also as a man of liberal tastes, fond of books, and happy in his domestic life. Like Mirabeau, he was a person of powerful physique and of stentorian voice, a skilled debater and a convincing orator; unlike Mirabeau, he himself remained calm and self-possessed while arousing his audiences to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Like Mirabeau, too, he was not so primarily interested in the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Macaulay studied law, was admitted to the bar, devoted himself largely to politics, entered Parliament in 1830, and almost immediately won a reputation as the best debater and the most eloquent speaker, of the Liberal or Whig party. Gladstone says of him: "Whenever he arose to speak it was a summons like a trumpet call to fill the benches." At the time of his election he was poor, and the loss of his father's property threw upon him the support of his brothers and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... intellectual stature of Abraham Lincoln. He was then about twenty-seven years old—my own age. Douglas was four years our junior; consequently he could not have been over twenty-three years old. Yet he was a very ready and expert debater, even at that early period of his life. He and Lincoln were very frequently pitted against each other, being of different politics. They both ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Charles James Fox, the most resourceful debater the British Parliament has ever seen, was so fond of his home and his wife that he would actually absent himself from Parliament for the sheer pleasure of her presence and conversation. Lord Beaconsfield, who, we are told, married for the mere purpose of ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... Australia are Sir Henry Parkes and Mr. Berry. Of these, Sir Henry Parkes is unquestionably the abler. He is a fair administrator, a good debater and leader of the House, has statesmanlike ideas, and but for his overweening conceit might have risen to the rank of a statesman. Mr. Berry's talent lies in a fluency of specious but forcible speech appealing to the mob, rather than in debating power. ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... especially at that particular time, was a crushing blow to southern Republicans. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Senator Alcorn was a man suitable in every way for the office of Postmaster-General. He had a commanding presence, he was an eloquent speaker, and an able debater,—by nature a leader and not a follower. He had taken an active part in the politics of his state before and after the War. After he identified himself with the Republican party he was ambitious to be chiefly instrumental in building up a strong party ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... Conservative, good at an argument, and had many heated discussions with some of my men whose tendencies leaned to the opposite side; but his sound logic and common sense were observable in all his ideas, and I think he generally came off best as a shrewd and clear-headed debater, for from his employment in various places his horizon was wider than that of the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... to execute his legislative functions. The same spirit and temper appeared in the speech on the Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland) Bill, which he delivered on the 17th of February; but his full strength as a debater was first manifested during the discussion on Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill of 1866, which was brought on for second reading on the 12th of April. His famous speech on that occasion, containing the most powerful arguments offered by any speaker in favor of the measure, and his shorter speech ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... and his arguments against that dogma remained. Another case which was notorious in those days was that of William Whiston (1667-1752), the well-known translator of the works of Josephus, who was dismissed from his professorship at Cambridge in 1710 for Arianism. A prolific writer and a shrewd debater, Whiston played no small part in ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... them all. He was speedily seated at the Board of Treasury; and there the clearheaded and experienced Godolphin soon found that his young colleague was his master. When Somers had quitted the House of Commons, Montague had no rival there. Sir Thomas Littleton, once distinguished as the ablest debater and man of business among the Whig members, was content to serve under his junior. To this day we may discern in many parts of our financial and commercial system the marks of the vigorous intellect and daring spirit of Montague. His bitterest ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... demerits of Mr. Trevanion. It is a name that stands unquestionably high in the House of Commons; but, as unquestionably, it commands little sympathy in the country. Mr. Trevanion is essentially and emphatically a member of parliament. He is a close and ready debater; he is an admirable chairman in committees. Though never in office, his long experience of public life, his gratuitous attention to public business, have ranked him high among those practical politicians from whom ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... debate was led off by skirmishers on each side, and was finally closed on the part of the railroads by Mr. Harrison, of New Haven, who was chairman of the railroad committee. Mr. Harrison was a close and forcible debater and a clear-headed lawyer. His speech exhibited considerable thought, and his earnestness and high character as a gentleman of honor carried much weight. Besides, his position as chairman of the committee naturally influenced some votes. He claimed ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... courteous gentleman, somewhat younger than M. Rosetti. His features are regular and handsome, his beard and hair iron-grey, and his voice even and melodious. He is full of pleasant humour, and has the bearing and manner of an English gentleman; but although an excellent debater, he is not a good linguist. In Roumania they say, 'Rosetti thinks and Bratiano speaks,' but Bratiano thinks as well as speaks. So completely at one are the two statesmen that many of the uninformed poorer classes who have not seen them believe them to be one person, whom they call 'Bratiano-Rosetti,' ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... respectfully towards his opponent, and with the dignity becoming his position, and the solemnity and importance of the question. We regret we cannot say the same of Dr. Berg, who at times seemed to forget the obligations of the gentleman, in his zeal as a controversialist. He is an able and skilful debater, though less logical than Mr. Barker; but he wasted his time and strength too often on personalities and irrelevant matters. His personal inuendoes and offensive epithets, his coarse witticisms and arrogant bearing, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... best preparation for a good speech is a thorough familiarity with the subject, and in his after-life he always carefully prepared himself, so that he was a forcible debater, whom it was not easy to ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... commencement of each debate, that they might hear the comprehensive statement of the opener, and remain at least through the chief speech in reply. They might not attend all through the inferior and desultory speaking, but they would be ready to pop in when an able debater was on his legs, and they would hear the leaders wind up at the close. Such, however, is not the theory acted on by the whips. They are satisfied if they can procure attendance at the division, and look upon the many hours spent in the debate as an insignificant accessory, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... with Lewes was Tom Paine, author of The Rights of Man. He settled there as an exciseman in 1768, married Elizabeth Ollive of the same town at St. Michael's Church in 1771, and succeeded to her father's business as a tobacconist and grocer. Paine was more successful as a debater than a business man. As a member of the White Hart evening club he was more often than any other the winner of the Headstrong Book—an old Greek Homer despatched the next morning to the most obstinate haranguer of ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... of Halifax, as Ranger of Bushey Park and Hampton Court, held many offices under William III., and was First Lord of the Treasury under George I., until his death in 1715. He was great as financier and as debater, and he was ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Parliaments as something to be treated with cheerful solemnity, like illness or family re-unions. Youghal's flippant disparagement of the career in which he was involved did not, however, jar on her susceptibilities. She knew him to be not only a lively and effective debater but an industrious worker on committees. If he made light of his labours, at least he afforded no one else a loophole for doing so. And certainly, the Parliamentary atmosphere was not ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... members, kept the blinds down and talked openly of Shakespeare. It was a low-roofed room, with pieces of lime hanging from the ceiling and peeling walls. The floor had a slope that tended to fling the debater forward, and its boards, lying loose on an uneven foundation, rose and looked at you as you crossed the room. In winter, when the meetings were held regularly every fortnight, a fire of peat, sod, and dross lit up the curious company who sat round the table ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... and the famine in Ireland—he opened the ports, and repealed the Corn-laws forever, to the consternation of the world, and in opposition to all the opinions of his life; this was in 1845. Since that period Sir R. Peel has been in Opposition, indeed, but not its leader so much as a distinguished debater, an accomplished financier, and the expositor of opinions which neither the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... should sooner expect a great original work on political science, such a work, for example, as the Wealth of Nations, from an apothecary in a country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than from a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a distinguished debater in the House ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... charge, of course I interpreted the bugle call to mean for us to get out of there honorably, and as the only way to get out honorably was to get out quick, we got up and dusted. The colonel always gave me credit for being a good debater, and he smiled and said that as no damage had been done, he would not insist that I be shot on the spot, but he felt that an example should be made of me. He said I would be under arrest until bed time, down under a tree, half a mile or so from headquarters, in plain sight, and he would ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... speech on that measure, which he defeated, displayed such extraordinary resources of argument and learning as threw all his associates of that epoch in the shade, and established his own reputation as the greatest debater of his age. ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... have said he was no debater, but the argument and persuasion that he used that night would have done credit to a Socrates. His opponent was difficult to convince, and not till the next day did the inventor show Blake ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... is, at this moment, an extraordinary constellation of talent. There is Mr. Webster, and Mr. Clay, and Mr. Calhoun, and a no-way inferior, Mr. Preston, the famous debater in the South Carolina troubles, and Mr. Benj. Watkins Leigh, the equally celebrated ambassador near the government of South Carolina. All are ranged on one side, and it is a phalanx as formidable, in point of moral force, as the twenty-four can produce. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... withdrawal from the scene his son's advance to a leading place in the councils of his party and the estimation of the House was rapid. Within limits of present Session he has shown increased power as a debater, promising attainment of still loftier heights. Ever courteous in manner, untainted by the "new style" deplored by PREMIER, he, though an uncompromising party man, has made no personal enemies among any section of his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... world became full of easy-mannered, graceful, gracefully-dressed, conversationally dexterous, finally shallow Wedderburns, Bishops Wedderburn, Wedderburn M.P.'s, Professors Wedderburn, Wedderburn landlords, all with finger-bowl shibboleths and epigrammatic cities of refuge from a sturdy debater. And everyone ill-clothed or ill-dressed, from the cobbler to the cab-runner, was a man and a brother, a fellow-sufferer, to Hill's imagination. So that he became, as it were, a champion of the fallen and oppressed, albeit to outward seeming only a self-assertive, ill-mannered young man, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... he entered the office of a notary, and began gradually to make himself known by his liberal opinions and the fervid eloquence with which he set forth and maintained them; and men began to see in him the promise of a powerful public writer, orator, and debater. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... handling of the case the consummate debater came to the assistance of the political strategist. Every one of his arguments in this opinion in support of judicial review will be found anticipated in the debate on the Repeal Act. What Marshall did was to gather these arguments together, winnow them ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... man; he talks earnestly and fluently, and his argument is clear and comprehensive, so far as it goes. He thinks readily and speaks aptly. As a debater, he far excels his opponent Mr. Green, and with a good cause would be an opponent difficult to conquer. But few, we think, expected so much of the metaphysics of gambling as he gave, but after he had constructed his argument, and presented the justification of the fraternity, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... seldom present passages that could be quoted, without tearing them forcibly, as it were, out of the context, and thus mangling the fragments which we might offer to the reader. As we have already remarked, he seems, as a debater, to revive the old type of the Revolutionary Congress, or to bring back the noble days of the Long Parliament of England, before eloquence had become what it is now, a knack, and a thing valued for ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but in his later years went too far in supporting existing institutions merely because they existed. Lacking practical accommodation to circumstances, he would probably not have been a great minister; neither was he a consummate parliamentary tactician and debater, nevertheless he stands in the first ranks of statesmen and orators. Lord Brougham goes too far in calling his speeches spoken dissertations; they were carefully prepared set speeches. In them, as in his writings, we admire the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... language that I possess." In all his life, probably, Washington never heard praise more genuine or more deserved. He had just passed his twenty-seventh year. In the House of Burgesses he had the reputation of being the silent member. He never acquired the art of a debater. He was neither quick at rebuttal nor at repartee, but so surely did his character impress itself on every one that when he spoke the Assembly almost took it for granted that he had said the final word on the subject under discussion. ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... gin ye were crossin' a desert place, an' ye saw the Rose o' Sharon afore ye, wad ye no' pluck it gin ye micht, and pluck it quick? I pit it till ye." And they answered him not a word, for there is no debater like the heart. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... off with flying colours after that. You see what a debater was lost in him; how nimble he was in the art of making white look black. The company was impressed, and no one more that M. Binet, who found himself supplied with a crushing argument against those who in future might tax him with the impudent plagiarisms which he undoubtedly perpetrated. He retired ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... from the continent. "I feel anxious," he concluded, "not only to add the Floridas to the South, but the Canadas to the North of this Empire." Others, like Calhoun, who now made his entrance as a debater, refused to entertain these mercenary calculations. "Sir," exclaimed Calhoun, his deep-set eyes flashing, "I only know of one principle to make a nation great, to produce in this country not the form ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... what we may call the professional class in our own. Besides conducting religious ceremonials, he consulted the gods on matters of administration and state policy, read the omens, understood medicine, guarded the genealogies and the ancient lore, often acted as panegyrist and debater for the chief. All these powers were his in so far as he was directly inspired by the god who spoke through him ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... the undisputed leader of the plantation interests of the South, and few men were better fitted for the great commission. A keen and able debater and an enthusiastic Southerner, a combination in himself of the up-country ideals and the low-country purposes, he had become the idol of South Carolina. Conciliatory in manner and pure in all his public and ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... perilepsis[obs3], a priori reasoning, reductio ad absurdum, horns of a dilemma, argumentum ad hominem [Lat.], comprehensive argument; empirema[obs3], epagoge[obs3]. [person who reasons] reasoner, logician, dialectician; disputant; controversialist, controvertist[obs3]; wrangler, arguer, debater polemic, casuist, rationalist; scientist; eristic[obs3]. logical sequence; good case; correct just reasoning, sound reasoning, valid reasoning, cogent reasoning, logical reasoning, forcible reasoning, persuasive reasoning, persuasory ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... some wearing that smile of superiority which to us is the Englishman's most maddening trait. I did not stop to think twice, or to remember that I was pitted against the greatest debater in all England. I was to speak that of which I was full, and the heart's argument needs no logic to defend it. If it were my last ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... him, though she deferred charmingly to him, in all things, was his charming young wife, herself an able speaker and debater who had once considered herself a suffragette, but who was now entirely absorbed in her beautiful ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... the Privy Seal was to be a Tory, I thought the Duke of Richmond the best. He is the most popular man in the House of Lords, and a good debater. The Duke and Lord Bathurst say he is cunning; but as far as I ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... figure would be an unfortunate one were it not for the animation that constantly pervades it. As it is it rather gives poignancy to his peculiar appearance; he has a small handsome hand, moreover, and a graceful as well as forcible mode of using it. . . . He has two requisites of a debater, a melodious voice and clear, sharply defined enunciation. His forte in debating is his power of mystifying the point. With the most offhand assured airs in the world, and a certain appearance of honest superiority, like ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... for bitterness?—though, with the unreason that no man escapes, he was not without bitterness. He had disappointed them as a debater—and, in other ways, what had he done for them since Whitsuntide? No doubt also the mention of his name in the reports of the Mile End meeting had not been without its effect. He believed that Fontenoy's personal regard for ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... so maturely thought out, debate was no mere exercitation; his education was fast passing into apprenticeship for public life; and in February, 1865, his father, Sir Wentworth Dilke, coming forward at a by-election in the Liberal interest for Wallingford, gave the Union debater his first ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... somewhat the better for his having lived in it, and he had chosen as the object of his beneficent labors the very lowest of his fellow-subjects,—the negro slave of the West Indies. He was, moreover, a vigorous thinker and an invincible debater, and, once embarked in this cause, he had no thought of drawing back. So exclusive was his zeal, that at one time Mr. O'Connell, vexed that the claims of his constituents were set aside, electrified the House by exclaiming, "Oh! I wish we were blacks!" The Irish orator ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... talent as an orator (he was never distinguished as a debater) was afforded ample scope by Thiers' project to fortify the capital. He opposed it vehemently, but without effect. In the boisterous session of 1842 he acted the part of a moderator; but still so far seconded the views of Thiers ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... character self-absorbed and contemplative. He was short and sturdy in build, and in his sober dress and grave deportments, suggested rather the dissenting preacher than the prophet of philosophic anarchism. He was not a ready debater or a fluent talker. His genius was not spontaneous or intuitive. It was rather an elaborate effort of the will, which deliberately used the fruits of his accumulative study and incessant activity of mind. He resembled, says Hazlitt, who admired and liked him, "an eight-day clock ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... of subterranean thunder roared around the Althing. "Listen!" cried an orator of the Pagan party; "how angry is Odin that we should even consider the subject of a new religion. His fires will consume us." To which a ready debater on the other side replied, by "begging leave to ask the honourable gentleman,—with whom were the gods angry when these rocks were melted?"—pointing to the devastated plain around him. Taking advantage of so good a hit, the Treasury "whips" immediately called for a division; and the ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... minister. Forthwith he rose to fame and power in the pulpit. His manner was dignified and noble. His brow was lofty, his eye flashing, his bearing the bearing of a commanding king. He was a splendid speaker, a ready debater, a ruler of men, an inspirer of action; he was known ere long as the Bohemian Luther; and he spread the fame of the Brethren's Church throughout the Protestant world. Full soon, in truth, he began his great campaign. As he entered on his work as ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... a ready debater is shown by his neat rejoinder to Deputy Fontn. This gentleman had made sneering allusions to men of letters who dabbled in diplomacy. Far from accepting the remark as a thrust at himself, as it was intended, Espronceda resented it as an insult to the then American minister Washington Irving, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... that a large majority declared the accusation not proven. There was wild excitement at this meeting; the hostile faction were rancorous about the captain being put up, as they assumed he could not possibly know all the facts; but both sides were one in admitting that his fame as a debater and an orator was established. So general was this belief that many of his adversaries congratulated him on having delivered a most ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... knowledge of the subjects he required in his official career. History was his favourite study; he never attempted, like some statesmen, to write; but if his knowledge of history was not as profound as that of a professed historian, he was afterwards to shew as a parliamentary debater that he had a truer perception of the importance of events than many great scholars who have devoted their lives to historical research, and he was never at a loss for an illustration to explain and justify the policy he had assumed. For natural science he shewed little interest, and ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... they, "if we lose our complement of lentils; and then, most reverend lords, what will ye do for choristers?" Finally, one of grand dimensions, who seemed almost half-human, imposed silence on every debater. He lay stretched out apart from his brethren, covering with his side the greater portion of a noble dunghill, and all its verdure native and imported. He crushed a few measures of peascods to cool his tusks; then turned ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... but his mind was broad and highly cultured, he had a vast fund of vigorous common sense, and he expressed himself readily and pointedly. With these faculties he would in time have taken rank as a strong debater. ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... too much speed, especially in speaking against time, a loss of poise in the bearing, a halting or jumbling in speech, nervous tenseness in action, an overcontentious or bumptious spirit. Bodily control, restraint, good temper, balance, are the saving qualities. A debater must remember that he need not be always in a heat. Urbanity and graciousness have their place, and the relief afforded by humor ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... that my former conduct was founded upon no one right principle, either of policy, justice, or commerce. I never heard a more elaborate, more able, more convincing, and more shameful speech. The debater obtained credit, but the statesman was disgraced forever. Amends were made for having refused small, but timely concessions, by an unlimited and untimely surrender, not only of every one of the objects of former restraints, but virtually of the whole legislative power itself which had ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... eldest son, Eugene, was afterwards a student in the law office of George F. Farley. He was a good debater as a young man, but as a student rather irregular. He went to New Orleans to reside, became an editor of, or writer on, the Picayune, and on a return voyage from Boston he ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... various—that he had an analytical capacity of considerable compass; was bold in opinion, ingenious in solution, and with a tendency to metaphysical speculation, which, modified by the active wants and duties of a large city-practice, would have made him a subtle lawyer, and a very logical debater. But the blush kept heightening on the youth's cheeks as the examination proceeded. He had answered, but he felt all the while how much his answer had sprung from his own conjectures and how little ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... where there are but local ones, a universal Noachian deluge when there was none, and of assuming that there were at successive periods thoroughgoing total and sudden extinctions of life, and as sudden recreations. Cuvier was a natural leader of men, a ready debater, and a clear, forcible writer, a man of great executive force, but lacking in insight and imagination; he dominated scientific Paris and France, he was the law-giver and autocrat of the laboratories of Paris, and the ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... the correctness of his own view, he felt so amiable a satisfaction that he announced his willingness to adopt the opinion of which he had demonstrated the harmlessness. So he begged his enfeebled antagonist to re-state it, which she incautiously did. No sooner, however, had the superior debater heard it for the second time than he resumed his intolerance, and made an ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile) |
